


the things we did and didn't do

by sally_s13



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Dallas Stars, Future Fic, M/M, Pining, but also past and present fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:33:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22736494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sally_s13/pseuds/sally_s13
Summary: John hasn’t noticed Esa yet, and a part of Esa wishes it would stay that way, that he could stare at John’s back for the rest of training camp. But Esa has never been that lucky and if the coaching staff really plans on pairing them up this time around too, as they keep hinting at in interviews, it would complicate things on the ice.Esa takes a deep breath and as if on cue John turns around, probably having noticed the commotion in the room, a smile spreads across his face as he notices Esa. John calls out his name, drawing out the a, it's dizzying how familiar all of it is.
Relationships: John Klingberg/Esa Lindell
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	the things we did and didn't do

**_2022-23 Pre season, August, Dallas Stars training camp_ **

Esa parks his car in the cool practice rink garage, a welcome contrast to the heatwave that has had late summer Dallas boiling hot since Esa got back from Helsinki last week. He takes a few deep breaths, leaning his head back against the headrest. His gear is in the trunk in a three-year-old Stars equipment bag he had managed to dig out from the back of a closet back home. If he wanted to he could pretend no time has passed since last time he was here. But in reality, he was just far too sentimental to throw it away at the time. A lot of stuff got replaced and thrown away after his contract ran out, but not the equipment bag.

It still smelled of the Dallas locker room when Esa dug it out, the entire closet did, a combination of sweat and ice. Esa had pretended to be shocked when he found it, trying to fool himself into believing that he didn’t know he had kept the bag like that closet was not a weird time capsule full of stuff he couldn’t fully let go. He didn’t go to his closet to smell old Stars gear with tears in his eyes, but there was something about opening the door to the small, cramped space and being hit by what used to be the smell of home. Call him a masochist or a hoarder, his friends sure did throw those words around to describe Esa that first summer after the Stars did not re-sign him. Either way, the equipment bag stuck around, and now it’s in his trunk, waiting for him to carry it through the too familiar corridor down to the locker room. But now he can’t stop thinking about his choice of equipment bag on top of everything else, maybe he should have gone with his Canucks one, or the one he got at worlds with the big and bright Leijonat logo. The guys might wonder why he kept the old Stars one, and even more over the fact that he pulled it out instead of waiting to get a new one. They wouldn’t understand how Esa had stood at his place in Helsinki, in that damned closet, telling himself over and over that he had to get used to the idea of being back on the Stars, to not be dressed in blue and living on the other side of the border.

Esa takes a deep breath, tapping the steering wheel, he obviously hasn’t done too well with coming to terms with being a Star again. Management had called him too and apparently he’s supposed to meet media after practice, media on the right side of the rink, in the home team’s dressing room. As if just being here wasn’t enough. They had told him that they wanted interviews with everyone but especially Esa and the other new, or well in his case semi-new, guys. Esa was never good with media, still isn’t really, at first he blamed it on the English, but really it’s more the whole gear off, microphones and cameras up in his face concept. The feeling of all eyes on him gets to him more than it reasonably should. This might be why he is still sitting in his car in the rink garage ten minutes after he parked instead of going to face the team, _his_ team. For a split second Esa even considers texting Miro to ask him to come meet him, to pretend like he couldn’t remember the right entrance. But Miro would probably bully him about it forever, so instead of outing himself as a pathetic fool he steps out of the car, walks through the doors to the rink and down the corridor to the locker room.

It feels like a fever dream. He can blame the sweating on the weather but the shake of his hand as he locks his car, not so much. He hasn’t met any of the guys on the team since he got back, he saw Roope back home sometime in late June and played with Miro during worlds, but the rest of them are strangers and old acquaintances. They had all sent him welcome-texts after the trade, but they had all, Esa included, been too busy with off-season grinding combined with the yearly move back to Dallas to meet up.

Esa fixes the cuffs of his shirt as he walks, drags a hand through his hair, straightens his posture. _New team, new opportunities_ , he tries to convince himself, if only the team was new, if the core was not mostly the same as four years ago, Jamie the captain, Tyler his alternate, Bishop in net. _New team, new opportunities,_ he tells himself as he opens the door to the locker room.

He all but collides with Miro as he enters, Miro smiles brightly when he realizes who he has bumped into and hugs Esa like they have not seen each other in ages, which to be fair, compared to living together during worlds, they haven’t.

“Esa, mentori! Welcome to Dallas.” Esa smiles wide at Miro’s enthusiasm and stupid nickname. Seeing Miro all grown up still makes something in Esa’s chest ache, he imagines it’s like seeing a younger sibling whose childhood you moved away from. Esa only got that first season with Miro, when the media talked about the Finnish mafia, the two of them plus Roope and Julius. Julius left the same season as Esa, he’s in Florida now after a handful of games in Anaheim, still fighting for a stable spot in the NHL. They don’t talk that often, Esa checks up on him every now and then and Julius returns the favor. Roope and Miro have stayed up and in Dallas though. Esa missed them terribly the first months in Vancouver, and would rather not admit it but he was bitter then too, sad that they got to stay when Esa was there first. Those feelings passed though, as he got used to Vancouver and saw Miro’s bright eyes and big smile during post games and video calls and Roope’s confident plays in Victory Green.

As Esa and Miro part a couple of guys are on their feet coming to greet Esa, he smiles as he scans the room, pretending he doesn’t know who he’s looking for. He finds him easily. John is standing by where Esa’s old stall used to be. John has his back turned towards him, but as cliché as it is Esa probably knows him by his back as just as well as by face. John is talking to a guy Esa can’t remember the name of but knows the Stars traded for at the deadline. John hasn’t noticed Esa yet, and a part of Esa wishes it would stay that way, that he could stare at John’s back for the rest of training camp. But Esa has never been that lucky and if the coaching staff really plans on pairing them up this time around too, as they keep hinting at in interviews, it would complicate things on the ice.

Esa takes a deep breath and as if on cue John turns around, probably having noticed the commotion in the room, a smile spreads across his face as he notices Esa. John calls out his name, drawing out the _a,_ it's dizzying how familiar all of it is.

**_2016-17 Season, March_ **

Esa is sitting in the corner of a bar booth, sipping on a beer while trying to keep up with the slurred conversation Radek is having with Curtis. The combination of Radek’s English being on about the same level as Esa’s, a work in progress, and both Radek and Esa being a few drinks in is not doing them any favors. Esa is content with being able to pretend that he is more or less completely lost though. That way he gets away with distracting himself by looking in John's direction every now and then. Pathetic, Esa knows this even a couple of beers in. But John is in a really nice pink-ish button-up and his regular back slick has become ruffled. He’s sitting by Devin and Jamie, laughing and Esa knows himself enough to assume that if the music wasn’t so loud his voice would be heard all the way across the bar to Esa’s table.

Really Esa is just looking at him because John said he would be back in five minutes, about half an hour ago. Add to that the fact that John is the closest friend Esa has on the team, except for maybe Kari, it’s not weird really, he just misses his company. There’s a whole list Esa has prepared in his head to justify the way he lets his eye wander in John’s direction every other minute in case anyone would ask. But Radek and Curtis haven’t noticed yet, too busy going through some girl’s Instagram-feed.

The whole team, minus some of the _wedded dead_ , as Tyler had nicknamed the married guys, are out. They’re celebrating a long-awaited win. There hasn’t been too many of them this season so far, or that much to celebrate at all, instead, the team dropped like flies with injuries and went on depressing losing streaks. A two-goal win against the Ducks and an off-day tomorrow was more than enough to deem it a good night to treat themselves to getting various levels of trashed. Whatever the reason, it had landed them at a loud bar.

If it had been closer to the start of the season instead of March, and maybe a dinner instead of just drinking Kari and Antti would probably have joined, and Esa would have clung to them. Since the Stars called him up Esa has mastered the skill of pretending to be really interested in what new brands of cereal Kari’s son is currently obsessed with while simultaneously watching John master chatting up teammates and strangers. Esa had spent the better half of this season mastering that skill, blending in with his countrymen, it had let him avoid being pulled up on tables (he can hear Devin's “it was _one_ time” echo in his mind at the mere thought of it), or paired up with American girls he really wasn’t sure how to approach. Esa still allows himself fun, he isn’t planning on wasting being an NHL player because he worries too much about how his English sounds or what the guys _really_ think about him. But keeping this skill polished and his cereal-knowledge up to date lets him - or rather had let him - navigate the team on his own terms, to stick to what he knows how to handle and avoid what he didn't want, and could not make himself want no matter how hard he tried. John had noticed after the first couple of months though, that it was just that, a strategy, not unlike plays during practice and games Esa had tried to set up rules for success with the team. John had laughed at him and thrown his arm around Esa’s shoulder when he found him looking at yet another set of baby-with-dog photos Kari’s wife had sent him.

“We need to get you away from these ancient goalies Esa!” John had yelled in Esa’s ear, loud enough for both Kari and Antti to direct some desperate chirps in John’s direction in retaliation.

“You buying?” Esa had retorted and from that night and onwards, Esa lets John pull him away from the safety of the Finnish conversations. John isn’t as crazy as some of the guys Esa has played with but it’s not far off. The nights when John drags Esa around more often than not end up with Esa getting slightly drunker than planned and they might have him leaning into John’s side a bit more than necessary and past a certain stage of drunkenness it definitely has Esa feeding John's ego with compliments way more than necessary.

Tonight though, Esa promised himself, would be different. He’s still trying to recover from their last outing when he had apparently told John that his hands were “Just as pretty as the plays you make with them”, or at least that's what Devin told everyone he said, Esa tried to push the fact that Devin isn’t to be trusted, unfortunately to very little success. Esa is still trying to understand what Curtis and Radek are on about when Devin and John walk up to their table.

“We’re going clubbing boys!” Devin declares happily. Esa is about to bow out but John must read his expression because suddenly he’s throwing a set of extremely bad puppy-eyes in Esa’s direction. “Come on Lindy, you’re not going anywhere, we have the day off tomorrow,” Devin throws at him when he notices the struggle. “Besides, me and Klinger really want you to come.”

“We really do, Delli,” John adds and god how Esa wishes he had some sort of self-control. Instead, he finishes his beer and gets up to join them.

When they arrive at the club Esa buys a beer and asks for a glass of water, all to the sound of John and Devin’s boos. Esa only grins in response and raises his glass of water in a See-you cheer as he heads towards a free sofa far enough from the dance floor. One point for Esa. No drooling over John or accidentally confessing how much Esa loves playing with him, how much Esa thinks about John’s dumb smile, soft hair, and beautiful hands. Instead, he waits for Curtis and Faksa to join him again, hopeful that they will be talking about something Esa actually has something to say about this time around.

“Lindelli! Esa! My partner in D!” John exclaims while stumbling over to the table half an hour later, looking happy and a bit too smug for Esa’s liking. Esa raises his beer and smiles in greeting.

“Hi, Klinger.”

John slumps down on a free chair and steals Radek’s beer from the table to have something to clink against Esa’s glass. “Skål!” he says while Radek protests and makes a half-assed attempt at getting his beer back. Esa would roll his eyes at them, at John, but he’s smiling far too hard for that, feeling way too fond at being here with teammates who enjoy his company, and listening to John ask Radek what cheers is in Czech, so he just sits back and asks John if he remembers the Finnish word for it.

It’s almost sad really, how easy Esa is for John’s dumb ways. John has his legs spread, his knee just barely touching Esa’s and as they argue back and forth Esa can’t help but notice how tight the fabric of his pants is around John’s thighs. Esa’s embarrassing happiness at having John back is short-lived though, John barely has time to finish the beer he stole from Radek before Devin, who apparently was only a shot or two behind John, reaches the table with a loud “Shots boys!”. He looks at Esa who hesitates but remembers his vow to go easy.

“‘m good thanks.” Devin boos but accepts and instead tries to grab the attention of the rest of his teammates, who are suddenly too caught up in some retelling of an old hook-up to notice Devin’s grand entrance. Esa grins at Devin's failed attempts, and Devin flips him off.

“Klinger! Guys! Don’t leave me hanging, shots!”

This time he gets their attention, the guys around the table either mumble something that sounds like a choir of approval or shake their heads visibly. John, on the other hand, lets out a loud _woo_ of excitement. Esa immediately feels a sting of regret when John turns to him, a hopeful smile plastered on his alcohol-blushed face, thigh moving even closer to Esa’s.

“Esa? Shots!” Klinger half asks, half demands. He grabs Esa’s arm, a casual touch but Esa has to try his hardest not to focus solely on Klinger’s soft hand around his bare arm instead of the actual conversation.

“Come on Esa! Your boy wants you,” Devin jokes, Esa’s cheeks go red, and he turns to chirp Devin back, his brain working hard on something about Devin’s receding hairline. But John interrupts him,

“C’mon Lindelli,” John drags the _i_ out in a hopeful whine, “It’ll be fun.”

Esa hesitates, John’s hand around his arm and his goofy smile stir something in Esa’s stomach. Esa feels Devin’s curious eyes on him though, and neither Esa or Devin are drunk enough to forget about Devin’s ongoing joke about Esa having a rookie crush on his D-partner. Esa really does not want to fuel that fire, he hesitates for another second before shaking his head “Nah”, which gets him a set of disappointed boos. They fade quickly though, as Devin and Faksa drag John towards the bar. John squeezes Esa’s knee as he leaves, and Esa has to take a deep breath and a big chug of beer to avoid running after him. It’s not like it’s too late to join them, Esa knows for sure that John would welcome him with open arms and take care of him, as he has all season.

John is only a couple of years older than Esa- He's shameless in the best ways, as soon as he gets away from the cameras. And on occasion, more and more often as John slowly grows into the role of a franchise player, in front of them too. Although loud and obnoxious, John isn’t suave in the North American way at all, not like the way Segs or Oleksiak can be when they need to. John has, however, completely gotten over the language barrier that Esa is still battling with. But then again John has been with the team for a longer time too. He’s an obvious part of the group, joking with Jamie, getting chirped by Rouss, talking fast in Swedish with Oduya. Regardless of that, he had taken in Esa under his wing. At first, Esa thought John just wanted to get some chemistry going to get them by on the ice. But John kept acting like he and Esa had known each other for years. Making jokes about Jokerit, as if they had actually played there together, instead of Esa being stuck with the junior team and John putting up points in the big show. Esa tries not to think about Helsinki and Jokerit, all the could-have-beens, but sometimes he lets his mind drift to thoughts of how things could have gone if they actually knew each other back then. If Esa had been called up for more than a game that season, if they paired him with John. If Esa had been one or two years older. John jokes about that too sometimes, that they were meant to be paired up here in Dallas since they never got the chance in Helsinki. Esa tries really hard not to read as much as he could into those comments, he doesn’t need to prove Devin right- or well, more right. It’s not like this is the first time Esa has a crush on a teammate, it happens, you see them every day, room with them on the road. And physical closeness isn’t a lacking trend among teammates, especially not back in juniors. Just as he has before Esa just needs to ride it out. He tries his hardest to just focus on hockey and all that, which could’ve been made easier if it wasn’t for the fact that Ruff refuses to separate the pair on the ice. And Esa doesn't have the energy, self-control, nor does he _want_ to distance himself from John off the ice either. Esa would never say it out loud but John is easily one of his favorite things about Dallas. Few teammates have made Esa feel this welcome and wanted.

Esa finishes another beer, enjoying himself with some of the guys who have reappeared from either the shot adventure or the dancefloor when John rejoins the group by the table again. Esa doesn’t even notice John coming back from the bar until he’s all up in Esa’s space. The question Oleksiak just asked Esa goes unanswered, not that he seems to mind, easily moving on to get attention from someone not distracted by John’s reappearance.

“I might’ve had a few shots” is how Klinger greets Esa. His cheeks are flushed, eyes bright and his back slick even more disheveled. Esa easily returns the smile. Feeling more tipsy than he did seconds ago.

“Having a great time,” Esa half-states and half-asks, trying to keep his eyes from John’s red lips, damp from either alcohol or sweat.

“Now I am,” John answers, obviously proud of his try at a smooth reply.

Esa should be embarrassed how much it’s getting to him though, but he can’t bring himself to care. He shuffles in on the couch and makes room for John who ends up more or less in Esa’s lap anyway. He shoots Esa a smug smile. “Ops-” John says, putting his hand around Esa’s shoulder to steady himself, not making any effort to move. “This ok?” he asks. Esa can feel a blush spreading, he grabs John’s hip to readjust him a bit, balancing out his weight, John might be on the skinnier side but he’s still a hockey player.

“Very ok,” Esa smiles. John smiles and starts explaining the shot procedure or Devin’s flirting abilities, or both, Esa can’t really keep up, too distracted by how close they are, how John’s warm arm is wrapped over Esa’s shoulder, the places where their skin meet tingling.

“Thank you for being so nice, helping me with the- everything-” Esa blurts out, John raises his brows and is opening his mouth to reply when Esa continues, “Tack!”, the Swedish word popping up in his head and leaving his lips just as quickly. He says it louder than planned, the pronunciation a bit off, but with more enthusiasm than anything he’s said tonight or this past week probably. He’s cursing the last beer for making it so easy for him to open his stupid mouth. John doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, he somehow manages to crack an even bigger smile. And suddenly, before Esa fully understands what’s going on John is leaning in the short distance to Esa’s cheek, planting a kiss there. It all happens so fast that Esa doesn’t have time to react. He finds himself leaning down after John when John pulls back, not realizing that that was it, a kiss on the cheek, not a promise for something more. But before he has any time to regret it, John is raising his brows, looking smug. And suddenly John’s lips are back, this time on Esa’s mouth. The kiss is wet and eager, Esa steadies himself by putting his hand on John’s neck. The kiss doesn’t last long before Esa hears catcalling and shouts from their teammates. John doesn’t freeze up the way Esa does but he draws away, smile as bright as before. Esa doesn’t know what to do with himself. He blinks and when he opens his eyes John is getting up, leaving Esa’s lap empty. John walks away towards the bar, playfully shoving Jamie who seems to be on him about the scene they just caused. Esa can see the red of John’s cheeks, a blush spreading down his neck. Esa suspects that he looks the same, if not worse. John and Jamie are moving towards the bar but Esa is still sat on the couch, his neck where John’s arm was draped seconds ago feels cold in contrast to the warmth John radiates. Curtis is nudging Esa, probably chirping him by the sound of Radek’s giggles. Esa barely reacts.

The rest of the night Esa tries to recompose himself with great difficulty. He washes down the kiss with a beer and then a shot. Carefully avoiding John, but John doesn’t approach him either so he assumes it’s mutual. He goes home without talking to him, sneaking in making sure not to wake Kari or the kids up. Esa heads straight for the bathroom, needing to get rid of the sweat and to try to sober up. Instead, he ends up jerking off, a lump in his throat threatening to burst and result in him full-on bawling with his hand on his dick. He finishes as quickly as he can, trying to remember the feel of John’s lips on his. When he’s done he naturally feels pathetic, he grabs a towel and makes his way towards his bed, throwing himself on it, not even bothering to get under the covers. As he dozes off he half hopes he won’t wake up tomorrow.

The gods are not on Esa’s side though because he does wake up, mouth and throat dry. Prioritizing sadly getting off in the shower over drinking water might have felt like a good idea last night but now his head hurts and he feels nauseous, but most prominent of all his pains is the big lump in his stomach caused by anxiety. Esa manages to let fifteen minutes pass before texting John.

_whats up?_

_Trying to keep lunch down haha:@ wbu?_

Esa decides that they are fine. They never mention the kiss, a couple of the dudes on the team joke about it for a week before Radek trips at lunch and the focus shifts to that and after a while, it’s forgotten.

**_2016-17 Season, April_ **

The Stars miss the playoffs by a mile that season. John goes to worlds, Esa’s contract is up so he doesn’t. Tre Kronor and John go on to win gold. Esa texts him a string of happy emojis and hearts and sleeps with a blonde dude from Tinder the same night.

**_2019-20 Preseason, Vancouver_ **

Esa’s first weeks in Vancouver are miserable. He mopes around a hotel room the Canucks management arranges for him, he’s handed a key and address to the place with the encouragement to find his own place as soon as possible, even with a list of agents the team recommends. But looking for his own place is heavily deprioritized to make room for feeling sorry for himself-hours and spending an unhealthy amount of time in the hotel-gym trying to sweat his more or less self-inflicted misery away.

Most nights Esa is put to sleep by pure exhaustion from training until his muscles ache. But there are days when not even that method seems to work. Those nights he makes it to the hotel bar and asks for a secluded table and downs a couple of gin and tonics as he scrolls through Instagram or calls friends to let their voices keep him company for a while. Sometimes his thumb hovers over John's name in his contacts list but Esa convinces himself it's a bad idea every time and instead he orders another drink.

When he finally gets out of the hotel to meet his new teammates it’s for the first week of training. It goes by so fast Esa barely has time to register who he meets and what tests they run. Not everyone is there yet, still flying in from all over. Bo Horvat is though, his new captain greets him with a firm handshake and a smile, he sent Esa a welcome text back in June but it’s the first time they actually meet aside from as opponents during games. He radiates the same sort of humble confidence Jamie could convey as well through just his presence. Esa wonders if it’s a Canadian thing or a captaincy thing, either way, Esa likes him. The same goes for the rest of the guys, there’s comfort in having Roussel around and in the way Jordie greet him as an old friend, even though Esa barely had time to get to know Jordie before he left for the Habs.

Right before the actual training camp, he pulls himself together enough to go apartment hunting and signs a contract for a big apartment not that unlike the one he had in Dallas. He makes calls to have the last of his stuff delivered from Dallas right before the Canucks head away on their first roadie. It’s just a couple of preseason games, but Esa finally feels like he somewhat belongs when he’s put on a pair with one of the younger defensemen who are trying to fight for a spot in the NHL rather than with the Comets.

They win in Edmonton and lose in LA, it’s hard to evaluate the games with all the prospects and young guys still up, but Esa doesn’t worry. Instead, he lets his shoulders fall back, tapes his stick like he’s done a million times before and lets the familiar burst of adrenaline spread through him as he hits the ice. He misses some passes as he tries to navigate Vancouver's play-style and as he lets chemistry build. Horvat pats Esa on his back after a shift and Rouss smiles at him after Esa screens LA’s goalie to let him score. During games, the misery is almost forgotten, Esa doesn’t think about Dallas or John. He loses himself in cellying with his teammates and trading chirps with opponents, as he gets geared up for games he flattens the Canucks logo over his pads as if he’s never worn another jersey.

But it’s during their off days or on buses and in cabs, on his way home from the rink or on his way there, in transition between the peace and quiet of hockey, he’s hit by longing as hard and unwelcome as a punch to the face.

On their way home from LA Esa sits next to Jordie on the plane. Jordie dozes off as soon as the plane is up in the air. Esa tries to sleep too, but he catches his mind drifting off to the Stars, to the playoffs, and to John. To all the flights he spent sitting next to John, when going home was a flight south to Dallas instead of past the border to Vancouver. Esa wonders who's sitting next to John on the plane this season and if John remembers all those flights spent together and all of their small rituals as vividly as Esa does.

**_2016-17 Season, January_ **

It’s January and more or less as cold as it gets in Texas, which compared to Finland is the warmth of a cold summer’s day. The Stars are at the airport, waiting to board their plane. Esa is joining the Stars for a roadie to New York and Philly. He has stayed up almost the entire season, scratched a few games here and there, never really managing to relax, always waiting for a one-on-one where they send him back to Austin. Kari tells him to stop worrying but he can’t shake the nervousness and unreal feeling of actually playing in the NHL.

When they board Esa slumps down next to John. The both of them have been thrown around in the hierarchy of bus seats and plane buddies but after a while they both settled for the rookie seats in the back of the plane next to each other instead of trying to upgrade to the big boy club at the front. “The cool guys always sit in the back of the bus, should apply to airplanes too,” John jokingly mutters to Esa when Jason walks past them to the bathrooms, obviously amused. “They’re just jealous,” Esa replies, not loud enough for anyone but John to hear. John smirks in agreement.

When Esa first had started sitting next to John at the plane it had been quite the shock to find out that John was afraid of flying. He kept trying to hide it and Esa didn’t want to confront him, but Esa noticed the signs. At any turbulence, John would freeze up and go quiet. It probably wouldn't have shown if John wasn’t one of the most talkative teammates Esa has ever had. In Esa’s experience, John only keeps his mouth shut when he’s sleeping, after a loss and apparently when the seatbelt signs glow bright white.

The first part of the three-hour trip Esa sleeps through, head tipped back and mouth open. But he’s woken up by the sound of a flight attendant’s voice over the speakers, but he’s barely awake enough to know where he is and not at all to manage to understand what’s being said. Esa rubs the sleep out of his eyes before putting his seatbelt on, figuring it’s time to land, but a quick glance at the screen in front of him and then at John says otherwise. There’s still two hours left before they reach New York and the weather is shit or something because the plane keeps shaking with turbulence. John looks ready to throw up or cry, maybe both, his knuckles going white from grabbing onto the armrest.

“Hey-” Esa begins, unsure of what to do or say really, this one feels impossible to ignore. John tries a relaxed smile in response,

“Morning, sleeping beauty.” It’s forced and John’s try at calm is betrayed by the slight panic and apparent discomfort showing in his drawn together brows, and tense shoulders. Esa smiles carefully at him. A few minutes pass of Esa trying to make conversation to distract John from the never-ending turbulence. John tells Esa that he’s going to try to get some sleep, but even with his headphones on, and eyes closed, Esa can see that he’s far from calm. So Esa carefully places his hand on John's tense knuckles, wanting to do anything to make things even the tiniest bit better. John opens his eyes at Esa and gives the relaxed smile another try. It’s still a nervous one. Esa smiles back, reassuring, figuring it’s all he can do.

After a while, the turbulence passes, but Esa's hand stays on John's until John falls asleep, his headphones leaking some rap song Esa can’t identify. When John wakes up for the actual landing Esa quickly pulls his hand back and tries to pretend like it was never there. John smiles brightly at him as the team make their way from the airport to the rink. New York is way colder than Dallas, Esa’s ears go red and John bullies him about it.

**_2017-18 Season, September_ **

Esa’s phone plings with a text from John,

_I’m downstairs let me in >:( _

Esa texts him a thumbs-up emoji in reply and gets up to buzz John in.

It’s preseason and Esa has been in Dallas since late July. Last season he started out the actual season in Austin, but before he knew it he had been called up, and he had stayed up for over seventy games before the season came to an end. For the majority of those months, he had stayed with Kari and his family, and before that, in various stale hotel rooms where the only decoration was the clothes he spread all over it and kicked into a pile to lessen the shame of meeting the cleaning staff who made his bed and cleaned his bathroom. The hotel rooms made him depressed and antsy but Esa had liked it at Kari's place, getting to play with his daughter and getting served Finnish food every now and then. Esa had stayed way past his welcome even though Kari would never have brought it up. On top of that, it actually seemed as though the Stars were planning on keeping him in the lineup. So Esa had spent the last weeks of the off-season following a realtor around in boiling hot Dallas looking for and eventually buying his own place. A flat in a big apartment complex close enough to the practice rink. The place is really too big for just Esa but he fell in love with its big windows, that perfectly framed a part of the Dallas skyline that he had grown overly fond of since being called up. Probably having something to do with the sentimental pride of making it to the NHL, being chosen by Dallas and now called up to stay, being able to actually make Dallas his _home_. Esa’s contract still runs for two more years and Esa has no plans on leaving anytime soon.

A few of his friends from back home had visited him for a week to help him out with the move and “experience summer in Dallas”. But since Esa had left most of his stuff back home the move had mostly consisted of lazily unpacking and putting together some furniture while complaining about the heat and as a result getting smashed on the beer they bought to cool themselves down with. They had left just a couple of days before preseason started and since then Esa hadn’t had time to bring anyone else over yet, his teammates and John especially had been on him all week whining about waiting for an invite and Esa has never been keen on denying John anything.

As Esa waits for John to knock on the door he throws some old magazines in the trash and folds an old Texas Stars hoodie that he threw straight on the floor after practice yesterday. Finally, there’s a knock on the door and Esa opens it, John greets him dressed in shorts and a white t-shirt, the bridge of his nose bright red.

“Forgot your sunscreen in Gothenburg or..?” Esa greets him.

“Shut up, at least my hair isn’t white,” John snaps back, but it’s all in good fun, he’s smiling wide. John discards his Birkenstocks and gives Esa a hug before wandering past him to the living room, carefully inspecting Esa’s new place. John’s wide smile shows off his fake teeth that are in place for once, Esa decides not to chirp him about that too. John has been getting enough shit about it from the team already, Esa has heard and handed out a whole bunch of easy jokes on their behalf. Ones about how “No one thought Klinger could get any uglier” and the ones about scaring the opponent teams off or scaring John’s girlfriend off (which might've been wishful thinking on Esa’s part). Esa has in all honesty seen way worse than John’s teeth, or lack thereof, he doesn’t mind that much if he keeps the fake ones in or not. But he did, embarrassingly enough, think about how they differed from the teeth John got knocked out, how the small chip in John’s right tooth was suddenly missing.

Esa follows John around the flat as the inspection continues only leaving his side to grab a bottle of aloe for John’s burnt nose in the closest bathroom.

“Catch,” he says as he throws it John’s way.

“Sweet, thanks.” John screws the lid off the tube and squeezes out the liquid straight on his nose, head leaning back to make sure the gel doesn’t fall off his face. Esa rolls his eyes at him as John tries to put the lid back on, with his eyes staring up at the ceiling.

“Dumbass, let me-” Esa tries to not find it as endearing as he does, how John is a total idiot, incapable of executing the simplest task without making a spectacle of it. Esa reaches over, taking the tube and lid with one hand and smearing the cold gel on John’s nose and cheeks with his other. John is scrunching his nose and Esa mirrors the expression in fake disgust. John smiles smugly when Esa removes his hand from his face so Esa wipes the excess gel on his fingers off on John’s t-shirt sleeve in retaliation so John won’t count this as a win.

“Hey! This is a brand new t-shirt stupid!” John can’t even keep a straight face saying it, laughing as he pushes at Esa’s shoulder.

“Boohoo, did Klinger’s new t-shirt get destroyed by some aloe.”

“Shut up and give me a proper tour of your fancy new place already.” Esa complies and they walk around the last few unpacked IKEA boxes and bags of Esa’s stuff, John absently rummaging through some of them as he talks about how Mattias and he had been at this crazy party in Gothenburg before they left for Dallas. Esa smiles at the stories, feels warm all over by just John’s presence in the barren apartment.

They end the tour back in Esa’s living room. Esa sits down on the couch, grabs two PS4 controllers and throws one in John’s direction, inviting him to sit down. Esa’s couch could easily fit five people but John still slumps down next to him, any closer and their shoulders would be touching. Esa tries not to think about the non-distance between them and how he’s just inches from John’s face if he’d turn towards him. Instead, Esa boots up Call of Duty on the console. John, who’s done with his party reports, transitions to babbling about the latest video some Swedish Youtuber just posted, as Esa connects both controllers and sets up a game. Esa smiles at some dumb take John has regarding pranks in Sweden versus in the US as the game shifts to a black loading screen. Esa can see their reflections on the screen. The image of them next to each other, relaxed and comfortable, makes him smile. Something pleasant moves in the pit of his stomach thinking of how easy this is, how much he’s enjoying being John’s teammate and _friend_. This is enough, to ask for more would be greedy, Esa can and will settle for this.

The game finishes rendering and the black screen is replaced by two weapons and the map.

“First loss buys dinner!” John bursts out and they quickly lose themselves in the game.

**_2017-18 Season, November_ **

In late October Esa meets Joonas, he’s from back home and in Dallas on an exchange semester. They meet at a restaurant by accident when Esa is out with Kari, both of them flinching when they hear someone who’s not them talk loudly in Finnish. Joonas is as uninterested in hockey as one could be and he doesn’t immediately ditch Esa when he understands their schedules won’t match up perfectly.

They’re both from Helsinki and spend a majority of their first date talking about home, Joonas is sharp and funny and Esa is enormously relieved at having someone to talk to in Finnish aside from his teammates.

“Are you for real? You have enough money to buy an entire tram, no way you have to actually watch out for ticket inspectors, total bullshit!” Joonas looks disbelieving at Esa trying grope for collective Helsinki memories, there’s a smile playing at his lips though so Esa goes on.

“I haven’t always been playing pro you know, and what if I do it for the thrill?” Joonas rolls his eyes but his smile grows wider.

“Oh whatever you say, but now that you mention it, what else do you do for the thrill, Esa?” Esa blushes at the innuendo. Joonas raises his brows, waiting for an answer. They go home together that night and Esa guesses it answers the question well enough.

Esa really likes Joonas. They see each other between Esa's games and practices and Joonas' classes, text when the Stars are on roadies. Joonas understands that their relationship needs to be kept on the down-low, but Esa notices that it tears on him to not be invited to games or to get to meet Esa’s teammates. Esa tries to kiss the worries away and give him all the attention he can to make up for it, he meets Joonas’ friends a couple of times after Joonas promises that they won’t tell.

But in the end, that’s not what leads to them breaking up, or at least not mainly. While Joonas worries about them, about what they can’t do in public and how he can’t be introduced properly to Esa’s friends, Esa can’t stop thinking about John. At first, Esa tries to convince himself that it’s just temporary, that he will get over it, and he really wants to get over it. But when he’s kissing Joonas’ neck his mind will automatically drift to John’s and the shame and anxiety of it make Esa go crazy. He tells Joonas it’s stress but suspects that Joonas thinks it has something to do with Esa not being out, a gay panic, and Esa almost wishes it was that simple.

It all culminates one night when Esa is out for beers with some of the guys on the team, he’s sitting next to John and is completely lost in their conversation when his phone buzzes on the table and the screen goes bright with _Incoming call, Joonas,_ Esa gets up to reply but can’t help putting his hand on John’s shoulder in passing.

“Hey, Joonas, what’s up?” Esa replies. Joonas is a bit drunk as well, out with some friends from his program in a different part of Dallas.

“I wanna see you tonight, babe.” Esa smiles and feels giddy at the thought of what Joonas is implying.

“I’ll come to your place, when are you going home?” Joonas giggles as he promises that he’ll text Esa when he leaves. When Esa gets back to the boys they loudly chirp him and ask him who he’s calling, joking about wanting to join, asking what her name is. Esa isn’t sure but he thinks John saw the caller ID so he just tries to ignore them all, scared that John will put two and two together. Apparently it works because John seems oblivious to Esa’s girlfriend being a dude, John just continues the endless stream of chirps,

“You’re not leaving us are you Esa, please don’t go all Kari and Nemo on us and settle down and get kids and all, you have time to play Finnish kindergarten when you’re older, Delli.” Esa laughs and flips him of “Fuck off, as if, and you’re the one with a girlfriend, dumbass.”

“Yeah but I remember you last year, drooling over Nemo’s wedding photos! Who saved you from that? Don’t you dare leave me behind after everything I’ve done for you.” Esa flips him off again and they keep arguing playfully back and forth and John sits almost pressed against Esa for the remainder of the night, constantly looking to one-up him.

Joonas texts Esa a couple of times, Esa makes sure to keep his phone angled away from the guys, it’s nothing too explicit but as Esa gets drunker he steadily gets more aroused thinking about what he has to look forward to. The weight of John against him isn’t helping and Esa has to try hard not to start thinking of absolutely inappropriate things as the different conversations and scenarios get more and more mixed up in his head.

When Joonas texts him to come over Esa struggles to leave the guys behind, he’s comfortably pressed against John and would have to ask him to move to get out, and they’re in the middle of arguing about SHL versus Liiga hockey, which is a fight Esa can’t let John and Mattias win. Finally, Esa takes his escape as John is off to the bathroom. He waves goodbye to the others and he almost has a foot out the door when John calls his name and stops him.

“Hey, you leaving already, Delli?” John grabs his arm, not hard enough to stop him from leaving, more as a casual touch but Esa’s entire body is buzzing with feelings far from casual.

“Practice tomorrow you know, gotta get some sleep.” Esa tries to act calm and collected but John eyes him with a disbelieving look.

“Whatever you say Esa, hope you have a nice night, tell her I said hi,” John says smugly before pulling in Esa for a hug and Esa burns with it as John presses his chest against Esa’s. It’s only a hug but Esa feels like he’s been set on fire from the physical contact, he’s sure that he’ll be half hard before he reaches Joonas place. _Tell her I said hi_. The trip across town Esa tries to focus solely on Joonas, working hard on pushing the memory of John’s body pressed against his own or how John’s attention had been fixed on Esa all night. Joonas buzzes him in and is already more or less undressed when he greets Esa with a hungry kiss. They don’t say much and Esa could blame it on that, blame the way he undresses and strips the last of Joonas’ clothes and goes on to kiss him and fuck him, all while thinking of John being in his place.

After that night things go downhill fast, Esa feels like shit about what he did, shame and guilt eating at him. He hates himself for it, tries to hate John even. Without John in the picture Esa believes, or fools himself into thinking, that he could properly fall for Joonas, be with him and even love him the way he deserves. But John is very much present in Esa’s life and Esa can’t get rid of him, so Esa and Joonas break up just a couple of weeks later, right before the Stars go on a long road trip. Esa can see the disappointment and sadness in Joonas face at first but he directs it towards Esa disguised in anger, and Esa just goes quiet, sits in front of Joonas and just takes the stuff Joonas needs to throw at him, tries to reply but he can’t manage to and honestly doesn’t think that what he’s feeling could translate to any language, at least not without furthering the misery.

Esa only hears from Joonas once after that. It’s a month later, during the last stretch of home games before Christmas. Joonas asks if he can come over, Esa lets him, they fuck and before they fall asleep Esa mumbles _I’m sorry_ against Joonas’ back, Joonas doesn’t react, maybe he doesn’t hear him. Either way, Esa wakes up alone the morning after, which is probably for the best but somehow it hurts more this time around.

The team notices that Esa is feeling down, Kari tries to pep talk him through it and invites him for dinner to keep him busy during the gaps in the Stars schedule. John tries to make it better by being around all the time, filling Esa’s days with the constant buzz of his voice. Esa thinks that it should make things worse, he could blame John for all of it but instead, he lets it lull him back to the comfort of routine and how things were before. At the end of the day, the team is still there, hockey won’t break up with him, not yet anyway, whatever happens, Esa can step onto the ice, shoot a pass and it’ll meet John’s stick.

**_2019-2020 Season, November_ **

The Stars visit Vancouver for Esa’s first game against them. The thought of seeing his former teammates hit the ice, and to face them dressed in blue has him buzzing, with nervousness and an ache to prove himself. His teammates’ stick pats are more encouraging and sympathetic than usual, most of them know what it’s like, to suddenly play the team you once called yours.

Horvat lands a soft hit on Esa during warmups and throws a “You got this kid” in his direction. Esa stays close to the blueline inviting Roope and Miro over to talk to him, they playfully chirp him in Finnish, promising not to hit him too hard before skating off to join rushes. Esa tries not to care or notice but he can’t help but follow the number three and _Klingberg_ on John’s back as John skates past him, refusing to look at him. They haven’t talked since summer, Esa doesn’t know why John would want to now. When the game starts Esa accidentally lets one of his passes through his defense before remembering how John plays, remembering that the guys in Victory Green are the bad ones and that his teammates are the ones in blue. John doesn’t land a hit on Esa, even though at times he looks like he wants to, but then again John has never been a hitter, plays better far away from the overly physical play. They don’t chirp either, and Esa is grateful for that too.

The Canucks lose, Esa didn’t get the revenge he wanted but at least the game is over.

Esa is unfocused during Bo’s semi-speech about the loss and he rushes to the showers and quickly throws on a hoodie and some slippers to have time to see some of his old teammates before they leave. The Stars are flying out of Vancouver the same night and some of them are already on their way to the bus that’ll take them to the airport before Esa catches up with them. He gives Miro and Mattias quick hugs before they leave the arena, promising that next time the schedule will allow for a better time. Esa is sad about them leaving and pissed at the loss, and at John for ignoring him, Esa figures he might deserve it after how he handled things this summer, but he has never known John to be petty. Esa doesn’t see John around while he's chatting with the rest of the Stars, he assumes that he might have gotten on the bus already. But as Esa heads back to the locker room he sees John about to enter the garage. John looks up, he has a hat pulled down to his ears and headphones on, and he seems ready to walk past Esa, but he slows down and meets Esa’s eyes. Esa stops, suddenly feeling cold in his slippers and shorts.

“Hey, Esa,” John says, “Good game.”

“You too- uh-” Esa has so many things he wants to say to John. Esa has never been the most talkative but he could go on for days about how he wishes things hadn’t turned out the way they did. He settles for awkwardly smiling at John, “Have a safe flight.”

**_2018-19 Season, February_ **

Esa and John are walking down the corridor from the locker room to the parking garage. They’ve just shut out the Flames 2-0 and won their first game in what feels like ages. The playoff race could be going better, but that has been a trend the last two seasons, disappointment and frustration laced with moments of greatness and potential that seem to slip out of their hands the minute they realize they’ve almost caught it. But tonight they won, it’s late, most of the guys left before Esa was done with the team doctors checking up on his leg that he had used to stop a puck late in the third period, but John waited for Esa so they could walk to their cars together, Esa feels warm and happy.

“Leg fine?” John asks when Esa doesn’t keep up with his post-win pace, Esa’s leg feels fine, he mostly doesn’t feel any need to rush, content with hearing John go on about some show he’s watching to then interrupt himself in favor of jokingly giving Esa shit for a bad pass. But instead of admitting that Esa puts on an exaggerated sad and pained face.

“Hurts real bad, not sure if I’ll be able to drive,” Esa blinks sadly at John who rolls his eyes and snorts.

“Too bad you’re so ugly or else you’d have hot girls lining up to kiss it better,” John chirps. Esa punches him and blushes, he can’t help it.

“I think I’m good,” he replies.

John is looking at Esa, smirking, his hair is still damp from the showers and cheeks pink from the game. Esa is hit with some sort of a déjà vu of his years in Dallas, John is there mixed into all of it, always present somehow, looking like that. Esa can’t stop himself, he takes a leap. He stops and grabs John's wrist, who freezes and raises his brows, but with a smile still playing at his lips. So Esa moves slowly towards him and kisses him. John returns the kiss and Esa’s entire body is buzzing with the feeling. It’s like a win, like seeing the clock tick down to zero and hearing the choir of fans cheering.

Both the feeling and the kiss lasts for maybe two seconds before John moves away, quickly taking a step back, pulling free from Esa’s loose grip. John’s face goes through several stages of shock, then confusion, and finally settles on sadness. Esa’s stomach drops. _Mistake, mistake, mistake_ plays on a loop in his head.

“Esa- I’m, I can’t, I’m not-”

John is looking to meet Esa’s eyes but Esa refuses to lift his eyes to John’s, instead, he feels himself go beet-red, lips burning, shame and anxiety spreading so quickly it makes him dizzy.

“I have a girlfriend-” John sounds so pitiful and sad Esa can’t stand it.

Of course Esa knows John has a girlfriend, of course, he knows John is probably not even into guys, he knows this would never work out. Esa wants to disappear, he wants his mom to come pick him up like she would when he was a kid and hurt himself at practice.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. Please, pretend I didn’t-” Esa’s voice is shaky and his Finnish accent is coming through way more than it usually does.

“But-”

“Please, I don’t want to talk about it, I won’t- please.” Esa hates his voice, hates himself, hates John’s sad, confused face. John opens his mouth to speak but before he has a chance to Esa interrupts him again,

“It’s the painkillers, I don’t know what I was thinking, I have to go- please don’t tell anyone.”

Every cell in Esa’s body is yelling escape, so he does. He turns away from John and walks quickly down the corridor away from him, his leg suddenly pounding with pain. He can hear John say his name but he doesn’t turn around. He keeps walking until he’s in his car. And then he drives.

Esa doesn’t register how but he gets home, it’s a wonder he doesn’t drive off the road with the way his hands shake from humiliation and rejection. As he takes the elevator to this flat, unlocks his front door and walks inside he can feel his phone in his pocket, burning against his leg, if he checks it he’s sure John will have called or texted. Esa throws the phone across the room, so hard he’s sure it will break. He can buy a new one, one without the missed calls and texts.

He skips dinner and cries himself to sleep and hates himself for that too.

The next morning he has a full ten seconds of bliss before the events of yesterday afternoon resurface, naturally, anxiety cripples him. It doesn’t help to know that he has to get out of bed, go to Frisco for practice, to face John. It feels like a nightmare that won't end, like he's set a ball in motion determined to keep chasing him until Esa gives up, retires from the NHL, goes back to Liiga or the KHL, changes his name, dyes his hair. He would look like shit in brown hair, but maybe it would be worth it. At least it might stop the ball of destruction from inflicting further horrors on Esa’s life.

He takes a shower, having to actively stop himself from scratching his head bloody while washing his hair. Pain would make it easier but Esa can't go there. He's grown up. He made a mistake. Things will work out, at least that's what he has to keep telling himself to not completely lose it. He finds his phone on the floor in the living room, it's cracked but after a few tries the Apple logo lights up through the shattered screen. Still works, he hadn't even managed to break it. He has a few notifications from different sports apps and Instagram plus a missed call from the team doctors. Nothing from John.

When Esa enters the locker room John isn’t there. Esa is sweating like crazy through his hoodie. Miro and Roope are chilling by their stalls, joined at the hip the way they’ve been all season. Not very unlike Esa and John- _up until last night_ , Esa’s unhelpful brain can’t help but fill in. Esa scans for signs that John has told anyone but no one is looking at him weirdly or throwing slurs or rotten fruit at him. Realistically Esa knows John wouldn’t tell or even minds the fact that Esa is gay. Esa still jumps when someone slaps him on his back when he’s tying his skates.

“Morning Delli,” John says.

Esa is too shocked to reply before John is on his way to his stall, greeting Tyler with an extremely embarrassing handshake they had suddenly had at the start of last season. Esa traces John’s path as he walks through the locker room, hands frozen mid-tie. Could it really be that easy? Is John really about to act as if nothing happened? Esa suddenly can’t decide if that’s what he really wants, feeling equal parts grateful and pissed as he's trying to work out how to deal with the rest of this day, week, season and career even. Esa doesn’t know how long he has been staring at John’s stall trying to decide which KHL team would be the best option when Miro pokes him in the ribs and hurries him in Finnish.

“Come on, are you getting old or have you always been this slow,” Miro grins and Roope laughs.  
  
Esa is too out of it to come up with a comeback, but he makes a point to not forget that his rookies are getting cocky with him. He gets dressed and hits the ice, skating up to John almost hitting him as they’ve made a habit of doing. John doesn’t flinch, he just keeps talking to Spezza while teasingly poking at Esa with his stick. Esa can’t help but wonder if it really could be this easy.

It turns out it’s not. At first, things feel almost normal, but as it turns out the changes are gradual. Esa cannot shake his nervousness around John and sometimes he catches John looking at him like Esa is about to break. So Esa spends more time with the Finns and John stops texting him as often when Esa insists on replying with simple _haha_ s or just emojis. Esa knows it’s probably his fault for turning away when John looks at him, but he can’t help it. Not long after that, they stop being bus and plane buddies as well. Sometimes on the ice, it’s like nothing ever happened, John playfully hits Esa and Esa hits him back. Their passes during games click and they throw themselves in each other’s arms when cellying. Esa is the happiest then, and John seems to be too but maybe it looks that way to Esa because he barely sees him anywhere else.

**_2018-19 Season, May_ **

The Stars make it to the second round of the playoffs, they lose in game seven against the Blues and it always feels like the first time, but after the season Esa has had it feels even worse. It hurts so much that Esa wants to break something. He doesn’t, rather than breaking his stick he calls an Uber to go hit up a bar with some of the guys. They drown their sorrows in gross, American beer and frozen margaritas. They don’t talk about hockey at all. Esa mostly focuses on making sure that the rookies won’t get too drunk off of drinks they shouldn’t even be served in the first place, and that they won’t tweet something career-threatening in true Stars fashion.

**_2019 Offseason, May_ **

It’s been just over two weeks since the Stars were eliminated from the playoffs, Esa stayed in Dallas as some of his teammates rushed to get to Worlds before missing too many games. Esa’s contract is up again, this time it feels less hopeful than last time. Either way, he couldn’t join Leijonat but they’ve done good, way better than anyone thought they would. Esa feels even more off than usual watching old teammates and friends play in the white and blue jerseys clad with the golden lion. Esa is used to not going to Worlds by now, there’s always an injury lingering or a contract running out, but this season he wishes more than ever that he could be there. Esa aches with postseason phantom pains, he wants to be on the ice so bad, wants the cold crisp air of the rink to makes his ears red, and for condition shifts to exhaust him so bad he’s left panting and unable to speak. He even misses the feeling of a t-shirt drenched with sweat slicking to his chest under his gear. Instead, he’s sat in his empty apartment in Helsinki. He got home a couple of days ago but his bags are still standing untouched and unpacked by the front door. In favor of unpacking, he’s half-sitting, half-lying, on his couch watching the quarter-final between Finland and Sweden, drinking beer. He’s supposed to get ready to leave for a party with some old teammates and friends, but his eyes stay fixed on the TV as Finland scores first. John scores a beauty of a goal on an assist that could have been Esa’s were they back in Dallas. Esa can’t stop watching, the grip on the beer bottle in his hand tightens as Finland scores again to bring the game to OT.

When Tre Kronor are eliminated by Leijonat Esa shuts off the TV as soon as the clock ticks down to four zeroes. It's not that he doesn't want to see his team Finland friends and teammates celebrate but he dreads how the cameras will turn towards the heartbroken, disbelieving Swedish players and John among them. In all honesty, seeing John’s disappointed face as the Blues ended their playoff run is enough for this season.

Some Dallas Stars account on Twitter posts about wanting to see the group chat between the Swedes and the Finns after the game. They have an old one, from before Miro joined the team, and Esa thinks that it includes Patrik, either way, it's been dead for forever. Roope texts the "Finnish mafia" group chat though, seven smiling devil emojis and a Finnish flag. Esa replies with a string of emojis of his own before going to grab another beer from the fridge. Esa considers texting John, he knows John would if the roles were reversed. But Esa can't decide what to write, everything the thinks about typing out feels off, and he knows John won't want to hear anything about the game anyway, and aside from that Esa doesn’t know what they have in common anymore, so he decides to forget about it.

Later that night, when Esa is among friends, pleasantly drunk and solely focusing on the joy of Leijonat having beaten Sweden and one-upped the rivalry, Esa’s phone buzzes. Esa clumsily gets his phone up and is met by John’s picture and name on the display, as if to remind Esa what a bad friend he is. Esa considers pretending like he doesn’t notice the call, it would be easier to just text tomorrow morning and ask John if he is OK then. But Esa's guilt gets to him, so he excuses himself to go answer the call. The house is packed so Esa sneaks out on the porch, the cold May weather hits Esa’s bare arms and makes him shiver but he soon forgets about it as he answers the call.

"Hello."

"Esa- you picked up. Hey, congrats dude." John is obviously drunk, but Esa honestly would be surprised if he was not, some amount of numbing the pain is pretty much to be expected when your team of 20 NHL-players lose to a team of zero.

"Thanks, yeah, not like I played but- Nice goal, I saw the highlights," Esa lies.

"Thanks, bought me a couple of beers here. But most of the guys were too sad to even go out. Not like the Stars huh- I really miss the guys. Are you still in Dallas or?" John talks slow, as if to not sound too out of it. Esa wonders if it's to stop himself from saying something that would overstep the unclear rules their so-called friendship is built on now, either way, he still manages to interrupt himself.

"No, I'm home in Helsinki. Got here a couple of days ago.”

Esa wishes he had the guts to tell John what he has been discussing with his agent, what he's been told about the negotiations regarding re-signing with the Stars. How this trip back to Helsinki from Dallas might have been the last time when he can call both Helsinki and Dallas home. But Esa barely wants to think about that himself, he told his agent over the phone on his way to the airport that he trusts him to get him a new contract, and the rest Esa has no control over, or can not bring himself to try to control. Adding John’s reaction, whatever form it might take, to the mix of the worries Esa has on repeat in his head is inevitable but one he tries to block out. Instead, he keeps telling himself that he might as well be back in Dallas in August and all of the worries will have been for nothing.

“I wanna come visit sometime, I miss Helsinki, haven’t been there in ages- since I played there probably. Jokerit huh, imagine how close we were to meeting, Delli.” Esa knows this conversation by heart, John has talked about it over and over, especially when drunk, but Esa hasn’t heard it in a while now, not since they stopped hanging out. Esa replies with a soft “Yeah”, he doesn’t have it in him to wave John’s rambles off. After they run out of things to say pretty quickly, Esa asks who John is with and John throws the question back at him after listing a few Swedes that Esa is different levels of familiar with. Esa can’t decide if it’s the cold or talking to John that sobers him but they exchange some final pleasantries before Esa tells John that he has to get back to his friends. He can't stand the forced conversation, the underlying guilt in John's voice and the burning shame on Esa’s part that is ruining or already has ruined their once so vibrant friendship. Just before Esa hangs up he can hear John starting to say his name, but in fear of what John, drunkenly and self-pitying, might say, Esa clicks the end call button.

The next few weeks Esa feels like he’s in limbo, he visits his family, sees his old friends, the same thing he’s done the last few summers between living in Texas. But the charade is interrupted by phone calls to Kari where he asks about the contract situation and more or less daily ones with his agent about the progress. It’s soon obvious that the Stars are not in a position to offer Esa what his agent deems a good enough contract. Esa feels himself drifting further and further away from returning to Dallas and finally in early June his manager texts him,

_Vancouver is offering a three-year deal. I’ll call you soon._

**_2019 Offseason, June_ **

The news drop on the 14th of June. Esa opens his Twitter feed to the headline “Canucks sign defenseman Esa Lindell to three-year, $5.5 million contract”. He has had almost a full week to get used to the thought of playing in Vancouver but yet the signing going official overwhelms him. He puts away his phone for the worst of the incoming texts and calls. He has a planned phone-interview with some Vancouver media later today and has already sent a text to the Canucks with the cliché statement along the lines of “I’m happy for the opportunity to play in Vancouver and I look forward to meeting my new teammates, staff and the fans.”

Esa does not know what to do with himself that day, how to act. He goes to the gym, calls his mom, briefly scrolls through the messages he doesn’t want to reply to. He opens one from Roope, it’s accompanied with a bunch of sad emojis and makes Esa’s heart drop,

_Gonna be hell facing you next season delli_

That text on its own makes Esa want to cry and punch a hole through his living room wall, so he puts his phone on silent, deactivates his texting apps and notifications for 24 hours. Calls a couple of his old friends over in hopes that they’ll get him drunk enough to forget about it all. He even activates his old Grindr account, _desperate times_ he tells himself. His friends come over, happy to talk shit about everything and nothing, Esa lets their noise and the booze they brought with them wash over him.

He actually manages to not think about Dallas, about Roope’s text or the rest of the team. But some two or three beers in they start talking about Vancouver and Dallas, comparing the two. Esa is hit with guilt, thinking about all the texts and calls he’s actively ignoring because he’s a coward. He groans on instinct at the thought and brings his hands up to rub his face trying to sober up or maybe just hide, he’s not sure.

“Come on Esa, they’re in the league too, they all know it’s just business, there’s no reason to be pissy about it - forget about that.” Esa knows his friends are right. But he still can’t stop nervously chewing the inside of his cheek and anxiously pulling off the paper labels on the beer bottles he’s handed. Of course the guys in Dallas, his now past teammates, know what it’s like. They know that the NHL is a business. Hell, since Esa joined the Stars they’ve lost more guys than Esa can remember. But still, Esa can’t help but feel that he has fooled all of them. Not telling them about what was going on, handing out the _See you in August’_ s like he had no idea. Esa just hopes that all of them will think Esa was clueless, that his agent handled all the negotiation behind his back.

Someone hands Esa a shot and he downs it.

At one point during the night, they leave Esa’s place for a bar and sometime during that transition Esa manages to find a dude a couple of years older than him on Grindr. Esa makes sure he seems to have little to no interest in hockey, even drunk off his ass Esa knows how this procedure has to go down for Esa not to be unnecessarily regretful in the morning, a media disaster looming on top of the trade, or not trade, re-signing. Esa hasn’t been traded. He took part in deciding this, he OK’d his agent looking for better offers. He really has no right to pity himself, he set this ball of destruction in motion all on his own.

Esa downs a couple of beers before the dude shows up, he’s a brunette, with a big beard, his eyes are soft and he’s funny, he doesn’t seem to mind that Esa is half-past wasted. It’s all a drunken haze but Esa goes home with him. As soon as they enter the brunettes apartment and the door closes behind them, their lips meet. The brunette’s grip is firm as he guides them towards the bedroom, wasting no time unzipping Esa’s jeans as they go.

Once in the bedroom he gets rid of Esa’s shirt as well and pushes him down on the bed. Esa hasn’t had this in ages, getting thrown around, someone taking him home, someone wanting him. He’s been horny for weeks, aroused since they left the bar and now he’s aching for it. He’s so close to letting a _please_ slip. But Esa doesn’t have to beg for it because soon the brunette is leaving a trail of kisses down his chest until his lips are on Esa’s dick and how good it feels the only thing Esa’s still drunken brain is capable of processing. Esa grabs the brunette by his hair, guiding his pace, pushes a bit too hard a couple of times but the guy just moans around Esa’s dick and the vibrations of it feel too good to stop. The brunette is facing down, eyes focused on Esa’s crotch.

“Come here,” Esa’s voice is hoarse but the guy obeys and pulls off Esa’s dick, lips parting from it with an obscene pop. Esa guides him towards him and their lips meet again, the kiss is way dirtier and much more desperate, Esa can’t stop himself from rubbing himself against the brunette’s leg who’s still covered by a pair of jeans, in search for friction.

“Fuck me?” the brunette pants when Esa’s lips leave his to kiss his neck and ear. Esa blushes at the question but he quickly nods and rearranges them. Esa finally removes the guys’ clothes, getting to touch his skin, letting their bare chests meet. Esa wastes no time opening him up. Drawing out moans and small jerks of the guys’ hips, searching for any relief. Esa uses his free hand to drag his palm across the guys’ thighs over his dick and stomach. When Esa is putting on a condom and getting more lube the guy is almost begging for it, lips red from all the moans he has bitten back.

When Esa finally lifts the guy’s legs around his waist and slowly sinks into him he has to pause not to come straight away. Esa wants nothing more than to stay in this, in the way the physical intimacy and pure pleasure brings him so far away from everything else. He can’t possibly focus on anything other than the loud moans and wet heat that surrounds him. The way the guy meets his thrusts best he can and how he grabs Esa’s arm, holding on tight enough to balance on the edge of bruising.

Neither of them last that long, Esa has his hand around the other man’s dick, lazily jerking him off as he fucks him. Esa comes buried in him, letting out a low moan. He pauses for the time it takes him to get through it before pulling out and placing his mouth on the dude’s dick, sloppily sucking him off until he comes with a moan even louder than the ones he’s been letting out since Esa started fingering him. Esa swallows.

“C’mere.” Esa obliges and pulls himself up to lie half on top of half next to the guy.

When Esa wakes up the next morning his mouth is dry and his head is pounding. It takes him a few moments to identify the bed he’s sleeping in and the man he wakes up next to. He wanders to the bathroom collecting his discarded clothes as he goes. His phone falls out of the pocket of his pants when he goes to put them on. He picks it up and unlocks it, only to check the time really, but his eyes are pulled to the notifications he actively ignored last night. He winces at several of them, scrolling through them as he walks to the bathroom, some more masochistic activity to add to the misery of his looming hangover. He locks the bathroom door before scrolling past John’s name. His stomach drops when he realizes that John called him three times last night, around ten with just some minutes in between. Esa had really tried to not think about John, to not make this about him, to try to move on from what went down this season. Esa opens a text from John that he got around midnight.

_Congrats on your new contract. Good luck in vancouver._

The text ends with a thumbs-up emoji. John has probably never used capital letters in his texts to Esa before. Esa gets what John is looking to get across. Esa’s thumb hovers over the letters and the empty box where he should type out some sort of reply, maybe even an apology. Instead, he puts his phone in his pocket and quietly leaves the brunette sleeping, writing a small note on an old envelope, signing it with his private number, mostly to be nice about the whole thing. Esa doesn’t think he’ll be able to meet the dude again without immediately associating him with why they met up in the first place, what and who he was trying to forget about, which one of his mistakes he was trying to fuck away.

**_2022-23 Season, September_ **

Esa feels like he’s 23 again, pining after John, not being able to stop his eyes from wandering in the general direction of John’s stall when he knows he’ll find John there. It’s not like Esa hasn’t seen John in the three years he’s been gone, they’ve played each other, even saw each other in Vegas last year for the awards. But all of those times had been brief and they had more or less just greeted each other with a quick hug and a few words, Esa remembers the suit John wore, it was navy blue, almost black, but he doesn’t remember much more than that. Now, sitting in the locker room, Esa can’t help but notice how John has changed, he’s broader over the shoulders, not by much but enough for him to look bigger than Esa remembers him. His hair is grown out a bit longer than how he used to have it too and it’s blonder than usual from a summer of sun. As John changes t-shirts Esa notices a tattoo on John’s left rib that he must have gotten since Esa last saw him change. It stands out sharp against the pale skin there, Esa can’t help but think that, years ago, he would have ached to know what the skin there felt like against his own.

On John’s cheekbone, almost covered by some strands of hair falling into his face, there’s a thin scar a couple of centimeters long, it’s close enough to John’s right eye to be a lucky miss. Esa knows it’s from a puck to the face John took in a game against Winnipeg two seasons ago.

**_2020-21 Season, October_ **

On his way to practice Esa scrolls through his emails and notifications, most of it getting swiped away and ignored but stopping at a push notification from theScore; _Stars’ Klingberg leaves game after taking a puck to the face_. He quickly skims through the not so informative piece on it, Esa mostly gathers that a puck somehow managed to hit John during a game last night, resulting in bleeding from somewhere near or on his eye based on the way John had covered his right eye as he headed off the ice and down the tunnel. Later at the rink some of the guys in the locker room mention it, adding further gore to the speculations, they talk about the nasty amount of blood, and how no one is really sure of if it had managed to miss John’s eye or not. The guys keep going on about nightmare stories they’ve heard of or been part of until they hit the ice for practice. Esa is distracted and unfocused for the majority of it, not being able to stop worrying about the worst possible scenarios.

As soon as practice is over Esa hits the showers and declines some of the guys’ offer to grab lunch, instead, he grabs his stuff and heads for his car. As he walks, hair still wet and bag slung over his shoulder, he unlocks his phone and scrolls down to John’s number for the first time in forever. He considers texting over calling in case it’s a concussion and the noise will make it worse, but he hopes John has turned his phone off if that’s the case. John answers just as Esa is about to hang up.

“Esa?” John sounds shocked.

“Hi, I- uh, I just wanted to make sure you’re ok-” Esa feels stupid for calling, for acting like it’s something they do. Like their relationship isn’t just one consisting of old friends and instead, one where they check up on each other, one where they had stayed in touch. “I saw about the puck,” Esa adds.

“Oh- I’m fine, or, not blind at least, might miss a few games, but I think it looked worse than it was.” John’s voice is so familiar and Esa is so relieved he’s fine it’s like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

“That’s good, I’m glad. It looked bad-” Esa doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to keep the conversation going, he feels like he’s 16 and being called up to practice with the senior team in Helsinki, careful and scared of making the tiniest mistake and getting called out for it.

“Yeah, it’s gonna scar for sure, as if it’s not bad enough with the teeth, at this rate I won’t make the calendar next season.” Esa laughs and promises that he will. They keep the conversation pretty short, John is between doctor’s appointments. When they hang up Esa is stunned at how John manages to make it feel like they had been hanging out this morning. It might be the painkiller, or maybe the concussion was more severe than they thought, knocking away a chunk of John’s memory of Esa. The parts where they had let each other go and moved on.

A while later when Esa is at home his phone vibrates with a text from John,

_thx for checking up on me. miss you._

Esa stares at the message for what feels like hours, feeling incredibly stupid for letting a several-year-old crush get to him. Embarrassed that it still takes so little from John to overwhelm Esa and make him feel so much. Esa tries to shake it off and to push the feelings away.

_Feel better soon._

**_2019-20 Season, January_ **

Esa has been planning on calling Miro for weeks. They text back and forth all the time, talk about all sorts of stupid shit in their old group chat with Roope. But Miro has been out for a few games with a sore wrist after blocking a shot. Miro says it’s only a fracture that doesn’t even hurt that bad, but the doctors won’t let him play and Esa knows how reckless you get. And he’s not sure how good Miro is at asking for company or help and with Esa and Julius gone Miro only has Roope left if he wants someone from home he can complain to in Finnish. Esa wants to hear Miro’s voice, make sure he’s ok and not rotting away in an empty apartment.

Esa dumps his bag by the door, taking off his coat, his literal boots, hat, and scarf. He keeps his Canucks hoodie on, his apartment is chilly, he hasn’t fully grasped how the heating works, hasn’t bothered to get it checked either, even though it’s mid-December in fucking Vancouver. He should really just ask Loui who lives three stories up what’s up with it, but now he has put it off for so long that asking for help would just result in Loui understanding that Esa has most likely been walking around a freezing apartment since October. Esa puts on a pair of slippers and shoves the heating question out of his mind again. He grabs a Nocco from the fridge and connects his headphones to his phone before typing out Miro’s name in the contacts search bar and hitting call. Miro replies after just a few seconds.  
  


“Esaaaa, how are you!”  
  


“Hi Miro, cold as shit, but aside from that I’m staying alive. How’s the wrist?”  
  


“Bet you are, I’d rather go back to Finland than live in Vancouver, honestly, you’re crazy, Delli.”  
  


“Thanks, I miss you too Miro, and just because I looked great in Jokerit-colors-”  
  


“No one looks even ok in them, shut up,” Miro interrupts him.

The conversation goes on like that for a while, interrupting each other over dumb shit. Esa manages to pry out of Miro that his wrist is OK but he’s out for at least one more game which Miro, of course, is pissy about. But Roope had apparently been over almost every day checking up on him so Miro was probably, aside from well, not getting to play, doing better than before the injury. Esa envies what Roope and Miro have sometimes, the natural way in which they’ve found each other off the ice since day one. Esa wonders if he and John were ever like that, sure they were close, constantly around each other and obsessed with each other’s business those first seasons. Either way that’s over now and Esa figures that even if they could have had that or were on the edge of having what Miro and Roope have, Esa’s self-consciousness caused by his feelings for John was too tough of a barrier to break through.

Miro obviously doesn’t want to talk about the injury more than necessary so they don’t. They go through all the usual talk about Liiga for a while before moving on to go through the various reality shows they’re both following. Esa dances around asking about the Stars, actively hoping Miro will slip and start telling him how the guys are doing, maybe say that they all miss him. Esa doesn’t want to be too obvious, out himself as a softie, caring about his old team. Not that Miro would care, but Esa is actually doing fine in Vancouver, he likes it. Pettersson is a bit like a weird Swedish mix between Miro and Roope, Rouss now greets him like they’ve best friends since forever and Loui is a good neighbor, invites Esa over for dinner every now and then. Vancouver has greeted him with open arms. Hockey-wise Esa gets as many minutes as he did in Dallas, he clicks well enough with his D-partners and he looks fine in blue (no matter what Miro says about Jokerit-colors). Esa’s place is nice too (aside from the heating) and for all the shit he gives the weather it’s not that bad, he doesn’t have to wear sunscreen all the time or make sure to have after-sun lotions with him wherever he goes. The winters felt more like back in Finland and Vancouver is a hockey town without a question. It’s fine here, it really is, Esa just misses the guys in Dallas. He tells himself he mostly missed Miro and Roope but in reality, he gets a lump in his throat if he spends too long of a time thinking about how he’s not fist-bumping Rads, joking with Faksa or hugging Bish after a win. He misses John too, but if he’d list things he’s trying to forget next to the list of things he misses, John is up there with the heating in Esa’s Vancouver apartment, problems that he has let run for long enough to not even know or can be bothered to figure out how to fix.  
  


“How are the guys?” Esa asks when Miro has been quiet for a few seconds, he does his best to sound relaxed and maybe even a bit uninterested.

“The season could be going better, they’re all kinda depressed, to be honest, but you know about most of it I guess, with Monty getting fired and all of Kling’s moping and stuff-” Esa has to stop himself from interrupting Miro right away, to ask _what about Kling?_ Instead, he plays it cool, hums and waits for what he thinks is an appropriate time to ask about it.

“What about Klinger? He hurt?” Esa feels like he should know if he were but he asks anyway, as casually as he can, hoping Miro won’t notice over the phone that Esa is everything but casual. He might be trying to forget about John but it’ll keep him up all night if he doesn’t ask.

“The breakup? Aren’t you guys supposed to be BFFs?” Esa is surprised at Miro’s question. He had assumed that his former teammates had picked up on how little time Esa and John spent together those last months in Dallas. Or at least that they understood that something was up with the way they barely greeted each other during the games back in November. Maybe Miro is just oblivious or he’s trying to be nice, either way, Esa can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it all.  
  


“Oh, he hasn’t told me actually,” Esa admits.

“Ah, I don’t know that much about it, to be honest- uh I think Roope told me that Mattias had told him back in December that they had been fighting since the summer and that she missed Sweden or something. I don’t know, I think they broke up then too?” Esa almost wishes Roope had been the one to drop the details about this, being way more of a gossip than Miro.

“Fuck- that sucks. How is Klinger dealing with it?”

“You know, hanging out a lot with Mattias. Looking for a rebound like crazy I think- don’t tell anyone I told you but I even saw him making out with a guy on the team last time we were out.” Esa feels like the universe is actively fucking with him. Like the universe is landing a huge punch straight in his stomach. He’s thinking back to his first season in the NHL and John kissing him at some shitty club in downtown Dallas. There’s too much trying to unravel in Esa’s head at the same time and Esa just wants out. “Esa? You there?” Miro asks.

“Sorry, spaced out, huh, yeah that’s uh-” Esa doesn’t know what to say. “Who was it?” Esa keeps digging his own grave but he has to know.

“John Nyberg, you know from the A, he was called up with all the injuries. But it all looked like a joke obviously-” Esa knows Nyberg is from Gothenburg. Esa has only met him a couple of times, he’s nice, good looking, Esa can’t remember if he and John ever played together.

“Yeah, obviously.”

**_2019-20 Season, December_ **

Esa wakes up to a missed call from John accompanied by a text.

_hope i didn’t wake you up i pressed the wrong number ignore the call_

Esa tries to do as he’s told. They haven’t talked outside of the post-game interactions after the games last month. And before that Esa hadn’t heard from John since before Esa signed with the Canucks. It’s weird to think that they used to see each other almost every day. That John was the first person Esa thought to send shitty memes or whiny “I’m bored”-texts to. And now it’s like none of that went down, like those three years were nothing more than a long dream.

Esa doesn’t reply. He’s done dwelling, he’s been doing his best to try to forget about it all, the way he’s sure John has long ago. But for the next week or so Esa can’t stop thinking about him and more than once Esa’s fingers hover over his phone as he tries to think of something he could text him. Everything feels forced or too desperate so in the end, he gives up.

**_2022-23 Season, November_ **

“Stars win 5-2!”

Esa’s legs shake as they walk off the ice. He hasn’t played a 30 plus minute game in a good while, especially not with Matthews and Nylander trying to take advantage of every mistake or wrong turn the defense takes. But they won, the season has been up and down in true Stars-fashion but they have more wins than losses and a few of the young guys are stepping up to save games. Esa feels genuinely happy to be back. He’s getting more minutes with the Stars than the last few months in Vancouver. Playing with Tanev and Jordie in Vancouver hadn’t been all that bad, but there’s something with the way John’s and his passes always seem to click. How the both of them after all this time still seem to know where on the ice they can find the other. John getting the puck up the ice, Esa having his back, always a few steps back. Esa has thought about it, how maybe it had always been like that. Not just on the ice, but off it too. John on the offense and Esa defensively trying to keep it together. But their friendship is wasted on hockey metaphors, on overthinking at all. This time Esa wants to stay in Dallas, he wants to retire here, wants the familiarity that the organization gives him. Wants his old friends back, to see Miro or Roope get the A’s. To see Jamie raise the cup, to raise it himself.

John throws his arm over Esa’s shoulders as they walk down the tunnel, he’s grinning, front teeth in place for once.

“That pass Lindelli, where would I be without you?” John’s cheeks are pink and his hair is slicked back with sweat.

“Benched Klinger, you know it!” Roope yells as he walks past them, carefully making sure to dodge John’s free arm. Esa laughs and feels almost giddy with how easy it feels to be back, not just on the ice with John, but in the locker room and outside the rink too. A couple of months ago he was unsure of how to handle John, and the rest of the team at that. But it took just a couple of days into training camp for Esa to realize that everything was more or less like he left it in 2019. And honestly even better than the last few months before Esa signed with the Canucks. Of course, the roster has been thrown upside down with the exception of the core guys. And they’ve switched coaches and styles a couple of times, but as long as Jamie and Tyler skate up the ice followed by John it’s Stars hockey to Esa. And they’re still there, with a few exceptions they’re more or less the same guys that Esa played with three years ago.

John is the same loud, energetic idiot Esa remembers but he has matured quite a lot too. Esa notices the first few days how John has stepped up even more as a leader on the team, housing rookies that get called up from the A, making sure they learn the ropes and get properly settled in Dallas. He’s as obnoxious and loud as ever but the respect he has earned during his years as a Star shines through when he speaks with teammates and how he carries himself in the locker room. Esa is happy for him, always was. He remembers when John first got the A years back and admitted to Esa that he felt scared that he would fuck it up. Esa knew he wouldn’t.

“You wanna get dinner, Delli?” John asks as they’re changing out of their sweaty gear. They’ve been hanging out a bunch since Esa got back but Esa is still surprised at how easy and natural it feels. John has been texting Esa almost daily since August, he hits him playfully during practice like they used to do and Esa hits him back. And when they hang out John won’t shut up, it’s all very familiar and Esa hates to admit it but it feels like home. But there’s this small concern eating at Esa when he allows himself to worry it’s like he’s waiting for John to cancel to go see a girlfriend or for him to realize what happened between them, it’s a stupid concern really, it’s been so long and John hasn’t hinted towards thinking about that in years.

“You buying?” Esa asks, it’s an obvious _yes_.

“Keep on dreaming, I don’t know how they treated you in Canada but I’m feeling it’s a good ol’ credit card roulette-night.” Esa rolls his eyes at him but he knows the fondness shows on his face, a real betrayal by his own face really but Esa will have to make up for it in winning at roulette.  
  


“Me and Miro are in, thanks for the invite, Kling,” Roope yells from his stall, obviously guilty of eavesdropping.

“Jeez, guess we’re bringing the kids then,” John exclaims loud enough for Roope to hear who immediately goes for chirping John for being over thirty. Esa snorts at them.

“They’re buying for sure,” he offers to John.

“Oh, I love the way you think.”

**_2020 Offseason_ **

The Canucks make the playoffs only to be knocked out in six games in the first round. Esa wonders if he’ll ever get further than that, if he’ll ever catch a break from losing. He misses two of those games too with his foot being all sorts of fucked up from a fracture. The disappointment and frustration are heavy with the team as they make their way to the locker room and then back a couple of days later for cleanout. It’s not very unlike last year. Sure Esa doesn’t take care of the rookies in Vancouver as he did with Miro and Roope in Dallas but he hugs them and tells them they did well. He tells them, as much as he tells himself, that next season is going to be _their_ season.

The Stars are still in the playoffs, Esa can’t help but keep up with them as he’s forced to stay in Vancouver to let the team doctors and coaches poke at his foot. Esa tries to think in positives, to be happy for a long summer back home, to be proud of his numbers in Vancouver and happy for the easy transition it was to start playing here. But as Roope assists on the GWG in game four against the Jets, Esa can’t stop thinking about all the what-ifs and could-have-beens. As if his teammates can read his mind he gets a text from Virtanen telling him to join him and some of the guys who are still in town for drinks.

The guys are all too exhausted from the last couple of months to do anything but sit at a bar and talk shit about the season. Esa enjoys it, he loves the guys here, it’s just something he has to remind himself of. Back in September, it was heavily overshadowed by the constant comparison between them and his old teammates. But when Brock throws an arm around Esa and asks him about his opinion on American versus Canadian TV, which likely is information he only wants to be able to win over Elias in some argument, Esa relaxes into it all again.

“You and John were really tight in Dallas, right?” Loui is done describing to Esa what was wrong with his thermostat and is now trying to make further conversation. Esa is past tipsy, steadily on his way to drunk, he does his best to fully focus on the conversation. “We both do our off-season training with Frölunda back home, he’s a nice guy.” Esa doesn’t know what to say really, he just agrees.

“Yeah. Miss him, we don’t talk that often,” Esa admits, it’s just stating facts. Loui nods.

“It’s hard with old teammates, to keep up and all… I’ve fallen out of it with so many guys that I swore I’d be best friends with forever.” Something sharp twists in Esa’s chest at those words. He doesn’t want that. He hates the thought of facing off against Dallas, against John, and them barely saying a word to each other, the way it had been this season.

“I should really call him, I miss him.” Loui raises his brows and hums at that, takes a sip of his beer. “We were like- best friends, really. He took care of me when I was called up, you know,” Esa smiles at the memories, “First time I- in Dallas he knew where I had played in Finland and shit. He’s a fucking idiot but he’s so nice. I’m sad we don’t talk really, I think he’s, or maybe was, angry with me leaving. I didn’t tell him last summer, about the extension talks.” Loui listens. Loui is a great, a good listener and teammate. I mean he even helped Esa with the broken heating thing. A great neighbor as well.

“He was probably just sad then?” Loui asks “Why would he be angry? He knows how the league works.” Esa contemplates it. Trying to remember what the text said, he remembers it sounding angry. No emojis, capital letters, big angry energies. “Sounds like you guys just need to catch up a bit, I mean it’s almost a year ago right?” Loui sounds encouraging and positive.

“I should just call him right?” Esa asks. Loui nods and agrees, looking proud of his support talk. Esa pulls out his phone and gets up.

“Oh. Not now, Esa! Tomorrow or in the summer maybe?” Loui tries, but Esa is already on his way to the door.  
  


It’s still cold in Vancouver even though it’s mid-April. Esa breathes in the fresh air, trying to match his breathing with the signal sounds.

“Hello?” John sounds far away.

“It’s me, I- just wanted to uh, what’s up?” Esa sounds a bit drunk, with the way he slurs some words, but he hopes John won’t notice.

“I’m at home, should sleep I guess.” Esa looks down at his watch, it’s almost midnight here, which means, fuck, it’s like the middle of the night in Texas.

“Shit. I didn’t wake you up, right? I forgot about the time.”

“No, it’s fine,” John says with a soft chuckle. “Are you out with the team?” The team, the fucking team. The Canucks are his team now, John’s team is in Dallas. Esa is in Canada, John is in the States and it’s staying that way. Esa can suddenly feel a lump forming in his throat.

“Yeah. Trying to forget about the series,” Esa tries to laugh to lighten the mood but it comes out choked so he’s not positive he’s fooling anyone.

“Yeah, it sucks-” John starts. Esa interrupts him.

“Are you angry with me?” Esa has to know, to forget about it all he needs to know.

“Esa...” Esa loves when John says his name, it’s usually all nicknames, first names feel intimate with teammates. But right now John sounds tired or maybe hesitant, Esa can’t tell. “I don’t think we should do this right now. You’re drunk, right, and I have to get up tomorrow.” Esa bites his lip. He feels like he’s going to break down any second. He doesn’t say anything, unsure of what he could say to that. John sighs, or maybe he takes a deep breath, Esa wishes they were on video call so he’d have to stop guessing. “Of course I’m not angry with you,” John adds.

“I’m sorry for calling. I should go.” Esa can hear John saying his name as he hangs up.

**_2015-16 Season, January_ **

Esa is buzzing with excitement and nervousness. He’s been called up to the NHL. He’s practicing with the team today, and if they still need him by then, he’s playing a game against the Kings tomorrow. The veterans in Austin told him to take it one game at a time, probably to protect him from the disappointment if they were to send him down after only a couple of practices and scratches. Esa knows the business of it all, but he’s aching to prove himself and to show that he belongs.

Parking in the Comerica center parking garage as a Dallas Star, and not as an aspiring one, feels insane. He’s been there before for prospect and training camp the last two years but there’s a different feel to walking through the building when he knows they’ve asked for him specifically. To know that management and staff think that he could help the team out, that he’s ready for the NHL. Esa was told to show up earlier to run through some info and runs with the coaches before practice. They meet him by the entrance, he shakes hands with a couple of coaches and some staff as they make it through the building, getting him the gear he doesn’t already have. When they take him to the locker room it’s still empty, but they assure Esa that Jamie is on his way to greet him and that the rest of the guys will show up soon. Esa sits down in a stall without a name on it and tries to drink it all in.

Jamie stumbles in ten minutes later all smiles and a firm handshake. They talk a bit about the Stars season and the AHL one. Jamie gives him a run-through on the dudes that are playing and jokes about Esa finally bringing down the average age of Finns on the team. As Jamie goes through a bunch of stuff, some of the guys start dropping in. Kari gives him a big hug and congratulates him in Finnish.

When it’s time to get dressed for practice, Jamie pats Esa on the back and leaves to get dressed, but not before pointing out John Klingberg, who’s sitting in his stall. Esa obviously knows who he is, they’ve met briefly during camps and Esa keeps up with the Stars enough to know about the Stars’ young, promising, offensive defenseman or whatever. They also met each other in passing years ago when Esa played for Jokerit, but Esa doubts that John remembers that.  
  


“Hey, Klinger!” Jamie yells over the locker room. “This is Esa. Bet you’ll be paired up in no-time, I trust you to look after him.” Esa assumes that it’s mostly a joke on Jamie’s side. John is less than a year away from being a rookie himself and besides that, he doesn’t even speak Finnish. John looks up at his captain and then at Esa, a bright smile spreads over his face. John gets up to walk over to Esa, dragging his hand through his hair, pulling it away from his face.

“Hey! Welcome. We’ve met right, during camp?” John greets him. Esa nods.

“Yeah, I think so, and I’ve seen you play- and stuff.” John raises his eyebrows and smiles even brighter at Esa.

“You played for Jokerit, right? I played there for like twenty games back in the 2011 season. You know, Helsinki is like a second home to me.” John is obviously ironic at the last bit and Esa snorts at it.

“Do you know any Finnish?” Esa half-chirps.

“Oh, believe me, I’m fluent.”

Esa laughs.

**_2022-23 Season, January_ **

John is with the team doctors, he got hit in the first period and landed awkwardly with his shoulder against the boards. He finished the game but apparently with his shoulder staying sore throughout the last period. Esa had caught the doctors giving John a disapproving eye as he left the ice wincing.

Esa is already done with showering and getting changed. He’s sitting in his stall with his head leaned back against the wall, absently scrolling through Instagram. He promised that he’d wait for John. Esa drove them both to the rink for the game and they had made plans to meet up with some current and old teammates on the Ducks for a late-night dinner, after the game. The stars had won 4-3, the game was gritty and exhausting, but it was a win. Jamie and the rest of the boys were buzzing with it until they left for the restaurant. Roope and Miro were too busy giggling about something to fully register that Esa stayed back to wait for John instead of joining them.

John isn’t gone for long but Esa is almost dozing off in his stall when he shows up, he doesn’t look to be in a huge amount of pain so Esa figures he’s fine.

“It’s fine?”

“Yeah it’s probs just gonna bruise, I’m all good. Thanks for waiting, thought you’d want to ditch me after the shift in the third.” Esa rolls his eyes at that.

“Shut up.” They mostly do as John changes, it’s an unusual but comfortable silence, one that Esa rarely experiences in the locker room, except for after a loss. John hurries with his vanity rituals. Esa tries not to look directly at John’s bare chest, the tattoo of John’s siblings’ names on his rib and on the way his fingers work when he buttons up his shirt, but Esa is only human. Esa bullies John over his hair routine but he, unfortunately, finds it impossibly endearing. The way John stands in front of the mirror with a comb and three different hair products to get the wave of his slicked-back hair right.

John finishes up, playing fake-offended at Esa’s remarks about the hair as they walk out of the locker room towards the parking garage. Esa can't stop smiling and John doesn't seem to be able to either, they're walking so close their shoulders keep bumping into each other, Esa doesn't think that being physically close to John will ever stop making him shiver the tiniest bit and make something pleasant in his stomach stir.

"I'm really glad you're back, Delli," John admits. Esa blushes, can't stop himself. Esa is no fool, he knows John is enjoying his company, and even if he hasn't told Esa, Esa understands that the relief of being friends again is mutual.

"Me too, Vancouver was nice but it's not the same as here, playing- being, with you and Roope and Miro again, I missed it. Missed this," Esa wants to add _missed you_ , but he's held back by the déjà vu of walking down this hall, doing things he'd come to regret. So instead, he rambles on.

"Really fucking cold in Canada too. I didn't leave Finland for nothing you know-" before Esa can keep on rambling, John slows down and stops walking. Esa turns around but before he can ask if John forgot something, John looks at him and takes a few steps closer to him. Suddenly John is so close Esa could reach out to touch him if he wanted to. John's hair is still damp from the showers, a few strands have broken free from his perfectly molded back slick and are hanging down in his face.

"Esa, can I-" Esa doesn't trust his voice so he settles on just a nod. John takes the last step towards him, carefully grabbing Esa's hand and then John kisses him. It's slow and careful at first as if John is waiting for Esa's reaction. And Esa reacts, there are what feels like a million feelings battling for his attention, but the only thing he can focus on is John, his lips, John's hand in his. This time Esa doesn't worry, he doesn't feel ashamed or scared of rejection. John wants this. So Esa follows John's leap and lifts his free hand to put it on John's neck, deepening the kiss. John moves even closer to him until he can't get any closer. Like so much of this season, this, too, feels like a dream, like one of his rookie-year fantasies. But John is actually here, kissing Esa like he’s starving for it. He makes a small sound when Esa hardens the grip on his neck. It makes Esa’s dick twitch and he can feel a blush spreading on the bridge of his nose and down his cheeks and neck.

Esa only ends the kiss to catch his breath. John’s mouth is slightly open, his lips red and shiny with saliva and cheeks are even pinker than before. Esa is smiling so hard it hurts, can’t bring himself to stop. John kisses him softly again before taking a small step back, his eyes fixed on Esa.

“I’m- I’ve wanted to do that for so long. Fuck- I’m so sorry for everything, about everything,” John’s voice is soft and careful but there’s something slightly desperate there too. Like he’s scared that Esa will suddenly turn away. Esa can barely fathom looking away from John right now, leaving this, leaving John again feels impossibly far away. Esa feels so distanced from his bitter and self-pitying self, a self that might have craved some sort of retribution. But even back then, he could never bring himself to hate John, the distance was a tool to cope. And now, when there’s less distance than ever, if John wants him now, even just for tonight, Esa won't deny himself that. He doesn’t have the willpower to stop himself or consider the pros and cons of this, he wants John so bad.

“It’s ok, forget about it,” Esa steps closer again and his hand is still in John’s. “We can talk later, it’s fine. I just- fuck, I want you.” Esa thinks that’s the most honest he’s ever been, at least vocally, with John. They’re so close that Esa can see John’s adam’s apple bob as he swallows and the small rise of the corner of his mouth. Esa wants to place his lips right on top of both that specific corner and on John’s long neck, he wants his mouth all over John’s body. He must be easy to read with the way he lets his eyes scan John’s body because John bites his lip, moving even closer to Esa. Esa kisses him again, hungrily, letting his tongue trace John’s lower lip before deepening the kiss. Esa’s hand makes its way back to the nape of John’s neck, fingertips combing through the soft hair there as he holds John closer to him. When Esa softly bites at John’s jaw, John manages between his small noises to bring them back to the real world.

“Esa, the dinner, the guys. Should we..?” Esa had completely forgotten about the dinner they were on their way to just minutes ago. Esa curses the timing and his past self for agreeing to go see _Ducks players_ when he could be bringing John home.

“Fuck. Yeah? Maybe we should, I promised Teuvo I’d be there.” John hums in agreement but grabs Esa’s suit jacket, bringing him in for another kiss. If Esa didn’t know better he’d think it was an act of almost jealousy. Just the thought of John being possessive with Esa makes him even more aroused. “The guys will wonder where we went, too,” Esa adds, “Roope’s been on me all season about Vancouver making me boring.”

“Maybe he doesn’t kiss you at the rink often enough,” John grins.

“Shut up,” Esa says but there’s no heat behind it, he’s still smiling too hard and blushing even harder.  
  


Dinner is nice. He hasn’t had the chance to see Teuvo, aside from on the ice, since the summer. Teuvo signed with the Ducks a few weeks after Esa signed with the Stars. They had some workout sessions together in Helsinki, both of them complaining about having to move. Teuvo chirped Esa about going back to Dallas when he could have waited and signed with the Ducks. Teuvo seems to be over that now though, the conversations are all All-Star break plans and league gossip.

“I swear Sepe texted me sad shit for weeks after you left him in Carolina,” Roope is trying to make some point of jokingly accusing Teuvo of being a heartbreaker. Esa can’t remember how they ended up there but in all honesty, he’s been a bit distracted, trying to sneak glances John’s way without any of the Finns or various teammates noticing.

“Is that not him being a crybaby, more than me being a heartbreaker? Also, believe it or not, but not all of us can be chained to each other like you guys.” Teuvo tips his beer glass in Roope and Miro’s direction. Miro rolls his eyes, long since refusing to be dragged into this, but he has a smile playing at his lips, obviously enjoying the show.

“This is not about me and my, for the record, fully functional friendships. It’s an intervention on you dumping friends and teammates, resulting in increased emotional labor for me. You know sad Sepe, it’s a full-time job supplying him with attention-” Teuvo just rolls his eyes as Roope proceeds with his shitty arguments.  
  


Both Esa and John had decided that they’d never make it through this night fully sober so they left Esa’s car parked at the arena and instead, they had snatched a taxi. They had both sat in the backseat, Esa being fully aware of their bodies, legs almost touching. Making the tension that much worse. When they entered the restaurant John had put his hand on Esa’s back, any other night Esa would barely have noticed, a touch in passing, but tonight it made Esa almost flinch, heat pooling in his stomach, his repressed arousal springing to life. Esa was quickly called over to the unofficial Finn-party consisting of Roope, Miro, and Teuvo, while John sat down several seats down the table next to Jamie and Tyler. They might be, possibly for the best, physically separated but it doesn’t help much. Esa feels like he can’t sit still. Leg bouncing, hands occupied with playing with his beer glass as he keeps looking in John’s direction. It’s as if he wants to make sure he’s still there, that Esa won’t wake up suddenly, in his old apartment back in Vancouver. Every time he finds John’s face between Guri and Tyler’s broad frames, John is looking in Esa’s direction, searching for him too. Over and over they repeat the weird teenage dance of looking away, smiling, and then looking again. Esa feels like he’s gonna burst. The few times he looks in John’s direction and John actually is busy with a conversation all Esa can think about is how he just an hour ago had his lips on his. When John laughs he throws his head back and all Esa sees is the small kisses and bites he wants to leave on his exposed throat. When John drags his hands through his hair all Esa can think about is the different scenarios where he could hold John’s head in place with his hands grabbing on to the blonde strands of hair.  
  


John goes to the bathroom at some point, giving Esa a look accompanied by a pair of raised eyebrows as he walks past. Esa waits for maybe a full minute but probably less. Teuvo and Roope have started arguing over some American reality show, both of them trying to get Miro to side with them without any luck. Neither of them seems to notice as Esa heads to the bathroom. John is standing with his back towards the sink, leaning back, obviously waiting for Esa.

“Hey,” Esa says, trying to hold back a smile.

“Hey, Delli,” John says, looking smug and letting a smile play at his lips. “How’s Teuvo?” John asks, absently playing with the hem of Esa’s suit jacket, rubbing it between his fingers, as if he’s interested in the material.

“He’s good, Roope is mostly bitching about how sad Aho is back in Carolina.” Esa takes a small step closer to John, looking at him. John bites his lip and raises his brows.

“Who isn’t sad in Carolina, though?”

Esa snorts but leaves insulting Carolina for a future conversation. “Please- come home with me,” Esa says quietly. He could be more graphic and tell John what he wants but the way John shudders when Esa says it implies that John can imagine that all on his own.

“Take me home then, Delli, where you go I’ll follow,” John smiles. Esa can’t help but reply with a quick kiss, smile widening against John’s lips.  
  


They go back to their respective seats for another half an hour before Esa excuses himself and says his goodbyes to Teuvo and his teammates. They complain about him being boring but Esa just smiles at them, not even bothering to argue. As Esa walks past the part of the table where John is sitting he pauses.

“Did you wanna split a cab?” It’s a bad excuse, partly because they don’t even live that close to each other, but no one seems to mind that fact. John happily follows Esa to a cab. As they sit down in the back and buckle up John puts his hand on Esa’s thigh and Esa has never been more relieved to not be driving.  
  


They make it to Esa’s place without causing a scene but as soon as the door closes behind them John has Esa pushed up against it. His hands are under Esa’s suit jacket in seconds, dragging his palms over Esa’s chest as he leans in for a kiss. It’s hard and needy and their teeth crash a couple of times. John’s tongue is soon licking its way inside Esa’s mouth, dragging along his teeth. John’s fingers brush Esa’s nipple and Esa half-gasps. Esa softly bites John's lip in retaliation and pushes his body against John's, shifting and placing wet kisses on John’s throat, nipping at the skin there. He's trying his hardest not to leave marks but based on the sounds John makes as Esa’s teeth make contact with the pale skin there, John wouldn’t mind. Esa could write lists on things he loves about John, from his speed on the ice to his stickhandling and to the way he smirks after dropping a joke. Right now though, the array of noises John lets slip is rapidly making its way to the top of that list. Esa had never imagined John to be a silent lover but these sounds Esa couldn't have dreamt up in a million years, needy and as loud as the rest of John.

Esa moves his leg to place it between John’s thighs, John makes another noise then, a choked-up breath as Esa’s thigh meets John’s erection. It doesn’t offer much friction, through underwear and suit pants. But John still leans into it, putting his head on Esa's shoulder.

“Fuck Esa, I’m- I’ve been thinking about this all night- fuck, the way you’ve been looking at me, your hands-” Esa feels his dick twitch at the thought of John looking at his hands during dinner. Thinking about them like this as he made conversation with their teammates.

“What about my hands?” Esa smugly asks as he carefully re-arranges his thigh the slightest to give John more room to grind against it. John welcomes it and as he does he lifts his head from Esa’s shoulder, his pupils are blown wide and his lips are red, some of his neatly slicked back hair is falling in his face. He leans in to kiss Esa, question almost forgotten as they map out each other’s mouths but Esa is way too curious about John’s fantasies to fully let it go, so he let’s one of his hands drag along John’s bicep up to his shoulder, breaking the kiss to look at John with raised eyebrows. John lets out a breathy laugh.

“I thought about them- ah - on me, in my hair, in my mouth- your big hands-” Esa unbuttons and unzips John’s pants as John talks.

“I’ve been thinking about your hands in me, fucking me- opening me up so that you can properly fuck me.” Esa lets out a groan, his dick is straining against the fabric of his underwear, the tightness of his pants is killing him. Esa bites his lip and keeps his focus on John, pulling his pants down and pulling out his dick. John is fully hard and the tip of his dick is wet with pre-come. John bites his lip, groaning at the back of his throat when Esa puts his hand around it. It’s long and pink from all the blood going to it, matching the way John's cheeks and chest blush after a game. Esa gives it a few experimental pumps, letting John thrust into his grip. After that Esa let’s go, to bring both of his hands up to John’s face, cupping it, eagerly kissing him, pushing himself off the door his back is pressed against. John makes no resistance as Esa carefully flips their positions and pushes John against it instead. It takes all the willpower Esa has to pull away from John’s filthy kisses, if Esa wasn’t so eager to get his mouth on John’s dick he’d be content with kissing and rubbing against each other like teenagers until they both come from just friction and anticipation. Esa breaks the kiss to kiss his way down John’s neck and chest, slowly dropping to his knees. When John realizes where Esa is going with this he drops his head back, letting it hit the door behind him with a thump, a small curse in Swedish leaves his lips. He quickly brings his hands up to softly place them on Esa’s head. Esa pulls down John’s pants and underwear just enough so that his ass is out of them and the skin around his dick is exposed, he leaves small kisses and bites there, lets his hand trace the curve of John’s ass. Esa licks his way up to the base of John’s dick, letting his lips almost touch it before leaving small kisses and licks on it. John is tense from the teasing and the mutual, unspoken understanding that he isn’t supposed to move, he keeps his back and ass against the wall and his hands tangled in Esa’s short hair.

“Fuck Esa, please-” John bursts out and that’s all Esa needs to let his lips part around John, first tasting the tip, letting his eyes meet John’s before taking the full length of John’s dick in his mouth. He slowly builds up a pace, tongue pressed against the vein on the underside of John’s dick, Esa takes him as far back as he can, then pulls almost entirely off. John is breathing heavily, his hands are still only resting on Esa’s head, almost grabbing onto his short hair. Esa takes him in again, so far that his lips meet the base of his John’s dick, he swallows and hums around it. Making John's leg twitch and a soft moan escape his lips.

“God, please don’t stop that- fuck you look so good- feel so good.” Esa can only hum again in response, generating the same reaction from John, who is looking down on Esa with wide eyes and parted lips. Esa pulls off for a second, grabbing John’s hands to properly place them on the back of his own head.

“You can set the pace if you want to- but it’s been a while so take it a bit easy.” Esa’s voice is hoarse. John lets out a loud groan at that and nods in disbelief, hand stroking Esa’s face.

“You sure? I- if, if you don’t-” Esa replies with putting his mouth around John’s dick again, taking it as far as he can before he starts gagging. John seems to get the hint and delivers a couple of experimental thrusts before relaxing into Esa’s mouth and throat. Esa gags a few times at the first thrusts, even though John takes it easy, but they soon find a pace. John grabs Esa’s head even tighter, moaning at every thrust and those noises, combined with the obscene noises of Esa’s throat getting fucked, are almost too much. Esa knows he won’t come without any friction but he can’t stop himself from grinding on nothing, to see if he can feel the seam of his pants against his dick for some sort of relief. John moans Esa’s name too, on top of it all. Esa can’t help the groans at the back of his throat as John fucks his throat, and the groans seem to generate some sort of vibration that makes John thrust faster and faster. Esa feels spit running down his chin as well as how the corner of his eyes brim with tears, he’s losing control but in the best way. He’s so turned on it hurts and John keeps softly praising and thanking him.

Esa looks up at John whose eyes are focused on the repeated motion of his dick sliding in and out of Esa’s mouth. Esa is so warm, his face feels red from arousal and the effort he's putting in, he definitely should be past blushing but the way John looks at him makes his face burn.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come, I’m almost- yes, god yes,” John switches to Swedish as he repeats _yes_ over and over. Esa holds back John’s hips against the door and pulls off. He can barely speak as he lets out a lower than intended “On my face”, he makes sure to keep his mouth slightly open and face angled upwards so that John understands what he wants. He brings his hand up to John’s wet dick, trying to keep the pace of John fucking his mouth but with his hand. After a few pumps, John puts his hand on top of Esa’s, jerking himself off fast and hard, moans and short breaths coming faster and faster until he comes, come landing on Esa’s cheeks and lips.

As John leans back against the door, cursing and breathing heavily Esa drags his palm over his face, wiping the worst of the come off his face, making sure to lick it off as his palm passes his mouth. John groans in disbelief.

“Fuck, that’s so hot.” The nickname makes Esa smile.

“What do you want, I’ll do anything for you after that,” John says, offering a hand to Esa who takes it and lets himself be pulled up from the floor. Esa can’t help but lean in and kiss John again, he doesn’t know if John is one of those guys who can’t stand the taste of his own come but John doesn’t seem to mind, grabbing Esa’s neck bringing him closer.

“You can fuck me if you want to,” John adds against Esa’s lips. If Esa wasn’t half leaning against John he’s not sure he wouldn’t fall back to his knees in defeat. It takes them several minutes to get to the bedroom, pushing each other up against every other flat surface on their way there. John hits his head a bit harder than intended against a bookshelf.

“Fuck, sorry, you ok?” Esa stops to worry. John just laughs and shakes his head.

“Now is not the time for concussion protocol, Esa. I’m fine.” Esa pinches his ass for being smart and proceeds to usher him through the bedroom door and finally pushing him down on the bed. He finally gets to undress him. Pulling off his suit jacket and crumpled shirt. Esa carefully takes John’s watch off, kissing his wrist as he does it, he’s not about to accidentally destroy a piece of jewelry worth more than Esa’s first car. Esa has already become more than acquainted with John’s dick, but when he pulls his pants down, exposing his soft, reddened dick in contrast to John’s pale thighs, that are splayed out on Esa’s sheets, he almost wishes he had saved John for the bedroom. Esa stands back when he’s done, drinking in the sight of John’s naked body in his bed. John meets his gaze, he’s not shy, never has been, at least not for as long as Esa has known him. This scenario seems to be no exception, he’s smugly smiling at Esa and shamelessly letting his eyes trace down Esa’s body to land on the bulge of his pants.

“It’s your turn now, I want to see you.”

“Not sick of seeing this in the locker room for five months?” Esa jokes. John just rolls his eyes in response. There’s no need for him to worry because Esa is already stripping, throwing his suit jacket on the floor, unbuttoning his shirt and letting that fall to the floor as well. He takes his pants and socks off but before he can take his underwear off, John pulls him in towards the bed. Quickly sitting up so he’s level with Esa’s crotch and suddenly he’s mouthing at Esa’s dick through the thin fabric. Esa grabs John’s shoulders on reflex and lets out a moan. Just the drag of the zipper down his erection had been a welcome relief and this is something else entirely. Esa leans into the pleasure of it for a few moments, looking down at John’s disheveled hair and wide eyes looking up at Esa. The sight is almost too much. Esa sharply inhales.

“Fuck… If you still want me- to fuck you you’re gonna have to stop that-” Esa admits. John leans back and smirks at him.

“Please, that’s all I want,” John says, his voice is uneven and his chest is flushed. He’s leaning back in to pull Esa’s underwear down, letting his dick spring free, which results in Esa moaning, and moaning even louder when John puts his hand around it.

“No Stanley Cup? Another Worlds medal? Maybe a young fresh D-partner-” Esa goes on as he reluctantly pulls away from John’s grip to grab lube and condoms. John tries to kick at him but there’s no real force behind it and he misses. Esa laughs. Planting small apologetic kisses on John’s shoulder when he sits down on the bed.

“Right now all I want is for my old stale D-partner to fuck me.” Esa snorts at that, remove the insult and it might be the hottest thing Esa can imagine, to have John more or less beg for him to fuck him.

John lays down on his back, spreading his legs, as Esa opens the tube of lube, rubbing the cold fluid in his hand, using his other one to pull John a bit closer. He steadies the both of them with a heavy hand on John’s thigh. John bites his lip hard when Esa slips in the first finger. Esa carefully studies his face as he moves it around, waits until John has relaxed and started clenching around him before adding a second.

John is panting and squirming when Esa moves around three fingers in him, he’s been dropping small words and moans of affirmation for a while and he’s trying to nudge Esa closer by hooking his legs around him.

“Esa- please.” Again Esa can’t help but oblige at John’s demands. He scissors his fingers a couple more times before pulling them out, leaving John empty and panting. Esa wipes the lube on his fingers off on the sheets before ripping open a condom and carefully putting it on his dick. He sits back for a couple of seconds just to observe the sight in front of him. John is leaning against the headboard of Esa’s bed, eyes dark and hooded. His lips are wet and pink, matching the bridge of his nose, he’s flushed from cheeks down his chest. His legs are drawn up against his stomach, revealing his slick hole and his dick, which seems to be getting hard again, despite the limited amount of time since John came all over Esa’s face.

Before John has time to beg for it Esa moves forward, grabbing John’s legs and effectively pulling him down so he’s lying flat on his back and has his legs spread around Esa. He adjusts a pillow under John’s lower back a bit. When he’s content with how they’re lined up, he lets his hands stroke John’s sides, down his thighs and finally he uses one hand to guide his dick before slowly sinking into John. Once again Esa makes sure that John’s face relaxes before moving.

“Ok?” Esa has to bite the inside of his cheek to not come from just the tightness and heat of John around him.

“Yeah. God yes, fuck it feels good- move,”

So Esa does, slowly pushing in and pulling out of John until he’s fully stretched around him. John grabs on to Esa’s neck when Esa thrusts into him. If Esa looks down at John their eyes meet. Esa almost loses it, it’s on the edge of overwhelming to have John look at him the way he does. Esa curses between moans and moves his head, placing it in the crook of John’s neck.

As John moans louder and in shorter intervals, Esa responds with small grunts and moans, changing their position every now and then to try to hit John’s prostate. When he does, John’s- or what was left of John’s walls come down, combining Esa’s name with curses and praises, telling Esa how good it feels, how big he is, how he’s been wanting this. Esa has to slow down to not come immediately. He puts his hands flat on John’s chest and thrusts into him hard and fast. John’s dick is hard again bobbing against his stomach.

“Can you come again?” Esa asks, out of breath. John just nods and bites his lip, grabbing his own dick, pulling at it to match the pace of Esa fucking into him.

“I’m gonna- please, yes, like that,” Esa tries to keep his movements even to hit the spot that does it for John and he must succeed because soon John is coming, clenching around Esa in a way that feels impossibly good. Esa grabs John’s hips hard and fucks him through the waves of it, to the chant of John moaning his name and finally, Esa is coming too, cursing and holding on tightly to John’s hips, fingers probably leaving marks. But John doesn’t seem to be in any pain, he’s looking up at Esa with his lips parted and a blissful smile spreading over his face. Esa leans down to kiss him, letting his last moan be swallowed by John’s mouth.

Esa collapses down on John. Their sweaty chests meet and it’s sticky and gross but Esa doesn’t mind.  
  


“That was hot,” John declares, breath tickling Esa’s collarbone. Esa rolls off John with a grunt.

“Made you come twice, not bad for an old stale D-partner huh?” John rolls his eyes at him and kisses him in reply.  
  


They go on like that for a while, telling each other dumb nothings and kissing, before Esa’s eyelids grow heavy and he pulls John closer. As he does John tenses, which almost activates some sort of fight or flight response in Esa, but John just hides in the crook of Esa’s neck and asks:

“Can I be big spoon?” Esa smiles broadly and leaves a careful kiss on John’s neck before turning around, letting John snake one arm under his neck and one under his arm. Esa’s back is pressed tightly against John’s bare chest.

“Happy?” Esa asks, glad that John can’t see how big his smile is because if John did, Esa would die of embarrassment. He’s so in love with John that it aches and if John saw him now, it would show. John murmurs a soft “Yeah,” against Esa’s back in reply, his breath warm against it.

**_2022-23 Season, January_ **

The next morning Esa wakes up to John sitting up next to him looking at something on his phone. When he notices that Esa is awake he puts his phone down.

“Hey, morning.”

“Hi- I-” Esa doesn’t know what to say or do, really. John is sat without a shirt on and he doesn’t look like he’s about to run out the door but still, Esa worries, his thoughts from last night about being happy with anything he can get have quickly been replaced with the fear of having John this once, only to lose him again.

“Stop looking like that, Esa. I can hear you worrying.” Esa blushes.

“I’m- I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” Esa admits. John looks sad for a second before moving a bit closer to Esa.

“Do you want me to be here?” John asks, his Swedish accent is coming through a bit, revealing that he might not be so overly confident either. Esa nods in response. “Yeah, I do.” John puts his hand on Esa’s chest and leans down to kiss him then and Esa feels hope flutter in his chest right under John’s hand. Esa puts his hand on John’s neck to pull him even closer. They kiss for a while before they have to break off for air. Esa pushes himself up to sit up next to John, their backs against the headrest. They sit there quiet for a few seconds, not unusual for Esa, maybe, but the long silence is uncharacteristic for John. But in the end, John is the one to break the silence so Esa guesses it evens out.

“I know I said yesterday, but I’m sorry for everything, Esa- for what happened in 2019. I’ve- I have thought about it a lot, I missed you a lot back then, and then when you left. I just didn’t really- I didn’t know what I felt back then. And a lot of it I worked out or- I guess realized after you had already gone. And I was so angry, and sad, with myself and with you. I’m sorry about all of it-” John is speaking in a tone careful but clear, between words he bites his lip and his leg keeps shaking. Esa puts a careful hand on it to calm it.

“When you left things were bad and I was bitter and confused and then me and- yeah, we broke up and- I guess I realized then why I missed you so bad but I assumed it was too late, still might be. I don’t know- I started seeing some guys and girls but I just couldn’t get it to work and then suddenly you’re back and I think I’m over it but- it’s you and I know it’s not true, but sometimes I swear it feels like nothing has changed and so much did- I don’t know where I’m going with this but I guess I’m- I guess I love you. Or, I’m in love with you- both.” Esa feels dizzy, if he wasn’t sitting down he would probably struggle not to fall over. To hear John say all these things shake Esa to his core, he has no idea what to say or how to react. It feels like lifetimes have passed since Esa was twenty-one and John took care of him when he was called up from the A, lifetimes since all those nights Esa would spend wanting John so bad it hurt. All his rookie-fantasies, the kiss at that fucking club. And somehow the mess from the 18-19 season feels even further away like it’s a memory that doesn’t even belong to them anymore. And now they’re here. John is thirty-one and telling Esa he wants him. Esa is twenty-eight and has spent the majority of his twenties wanting this or distantly imagining this. Now he has it, or might have it, could have it.

John is nervously fidgeting with the cover and it looks like he’s trying to read Esa’s mind, Esa knows he has to say something or do something. So he leans in and kisses John again, John kisses him back hungrily and grabs onto his face. Esa guides John’s body so that John is sat straddling Esa’s lap, John follows Esa’s lead without hesitation, there are hockey parallels to be drawn there but Esa won’t go there. Instead, he slowly breaks free from the kiss and places his hands on John’s waist. John looks straight at him and when Esa meets his eyes he can feel himself blushing, there’s a blush spreading on John’s throat and chest too.

“I want to make this work-” Esa begins, hesitant, not sure how much he wants to give away, how honest he can be. But to make this work he guesses he has to give it his all.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time- I had a crush on you in 2016 when I was called up and- yeah, you know. I’ve been in love with you for a long time. I think- or I know that I want this so bad. But I’m scared too, of this, or maybe more of losing it,” John is looking at him intensely, he looks almost heartbroken at Esa’s words, wearing all of his feelings on his face. As if he’s realizing how long it’s been, how much time they’ve wasted and spent apart. Esa doesn’t like it. “Hey, John, it’s fine, I just wanted to say it, I’ve never said it- we’re here now. I just have to say it.” John nods and smiles softly.  
  


“We didn’t get to play together for Jokerit, but maybe we can have this?” John suggests, Esa laughs at the old reference and pulls John down for another kiss.

“Yeah, maybe we can have this.”

**_2023-24 Season, May_ **

The Stars have just knocked out the Avs in game six. They’re finally headed to a conference final. Esa can’t stop smiling on the bench as the last few shifts pass, and the Stars keep their lead.

As soon as the clock ticks down to zero the guys throw themselves on Ben. They’re all yelling and smiling so wide it hurts. As they get up to thank the fans and leave the ice, John skates up to Esa. They skate side by side, Esa aches to get home to kiss him all over. John knows by his smug smile. Esa hates how obvious he is, how transparent he is in his affection. He can’t be here, but he can put his hand on John’s arm, so he does. John bumps into his shoulder a bit, teasing him about it.

“Great fucking game, Esa,”

“Yeah, you too, John.”

They don’t say that much more, but as Jamie speaks to the team, and when they go to hit the showers, they’re inseparable. John’s hand is on Esa’s knee as they listen, disguised as a casual touch. When they hit the showers, John ruffles Esa’s sweaty and gross hair. Esa can’t imagine being anywhere else but here. Some days he’s hit by a feeling that all of this can’t be real, that he’s not allowed to have all of this, but John kisses those thoughts away. It took them a while to work it all out, how to actually have each other. But it’s at times like this, when they win and when John looks at Esa like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen, that the worries calm down and everything seems to even out. Esa has known for ages about wanting John, but having him is something else entirely.

They’re the first ones to leave the locker room. They walk down the long corridor to the parking garage side by side, as they have thousands of times. In Esa’s mind, there are monuments to them here, placed where they kissed, the first time years ago and the second time just a couple of months back.

“Hey,” John says, slowing down a bit, “Remember this place?” Esa smiles and looks down the empty corridor before taking a step closer to John.

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” John says smugly.

Esa rolls his eyes before leaning in to kiss John.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this, specifically the scene at the club, back in 2017 with no intention of it transforming into this big 25k monster but here we are. I do apologize for all the sad shit but that's just who I am. I have tried to be as true to real events as possible in the hockey parts of this narrative up until 2019 at least, but all of the scores are more or less made up because I can be bothered to find old Liiga websites to try to confirm if John and Esa played together but I will NOT go on the NHL website to grab a real score from 3 seasons back. 
> 
> Big shoutout to my wonderful friend Ida (Jadie on AO3!) who let me yell about this fic for a full year. She helped out with a whole bunch of ideas for scenes and with how to structure the fic but most importantly, she also edited the fic and supplied me with expert information on Finns. Ily and thank you so much for all your support <3
> 
> I'm @vndrlylecrybby on Twitter and johnklingberg on Tumblr feel free to drop by there to talk about Jesa or the Stars.
> 
> The title is set after one of my favorite The Magnetic Fields songs with the same name.


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